


The Home Front

by ShadyQuiet



Series: Very Much Wanted [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Bondlock, Copious Fluff, Established Relationship, Everyone is a work in progess, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Post Mpreg, alpha!Bond, child rearing, omega!Q
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26993329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadyQuiet/pseuds/ShadyQuiet
Summary: James and Q, new to parenthood and indeed domesticity in general, have one hell of a mission ahead of them: to raise the newborn child they so carefully brought into this world whilst juggling their lives at MI6.Something so vulnerable is probably going to need more than their rather impressive combined credentials to survive.Being utterly besotted and having a developing pack around them might just do the trick though.
Relationships: James Bond/Q, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Very Much Wanted [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/88957
Comments: 39
Kudos: 119





	1. One - Two Months

**Author's Note:**

> So. Theres a pandemic on, and I've been re-reading all my old work whilst being furloughed. After reading the pure beast that was Very Much Wanted, I decided maybe it was time to release all of these extra bits that I wrote to continue the adventure since we all need a pick me up. I don't know if I can achieve the same level of story writing after all this time, but I hope that this entertains some people in this weird weird time, and I'm gonna try my damn best.
> 
> Each chapter spans a couple of months, and will be god knows how long but I aim to cover a year or so right now.
> 
> I don't know if anyone who read the first story will be reading this now, but I hope some people find their way here.  
> To anyone new to this 'verse, Very Much Wanted is the first in the arc, and is, um, long! If you want to go read it first then I hope you enjoy! If anyone wants just the footnotes, here it is in very, very brief (some spoilers):
> 
> Set after Skyfall. Q and Bond were happily mated for about 2 years, then got a fairly planned pregnancy. Said pregnancy had some rather brutal moments. Q is a Holmes, and was estranged from his family by choice. They bonded over the course of the series, all 3 were a little messed up in the head. Alec is a member of the pack by virtue of being Bond's best friend. Mycroft and Eve started a fling towards the end, and Mallory is mated to a man named Villiers who appeared in Casino Royale (they have 3 children).
> 
> Also, I still tend to write long notes.  
> Without further ado, go forth!

Some days, as Q slept, Bond couldn’t help gazing forlornly at his mate’s nipples. They used to be just for him, and not that he’d begrudge his pup anything, but it did seem like the not-as-small nubs weren’t his for playing with as they once had been. The thought was becoming a particularly trying one, one month after their daughter’s birth, simply because they hadn’t touched each other in _that way_ since.

They kissed often, and kept in contact. Q fell asleep on him most nights, but they hadn’t been intimate. Of course, James realised that Q was still obviously sore, inside and out, but he himself was unfortunately under no such constraints. And he’d always had quite the renowned sex drive.

Now, with the blanket rode down around Q’s waist as it was, the omega’s dusky and slightly swollen, entirely edible looking nipples were on display but for display purposes only. Or so it seemed. Alice gurgled in her cot and fussed a little, something Q was getting better at sleeping through, thankfully. James looked over at their daughter’s flexing fists…

Sometimes, it was as if she knew that James was thinking about something the pup considered ‘hers’. Which currently seemed to consist of almost the entirety of her mother. James grumbled half-heartedly and draped his hand over Q’s slowly retracting belly instead. Although his mate still looked well on the pregnant side of things, the constant nursing and fast metabolism the man possessed seemed to be gradually sorting everything out. As for exercise, Q’s hips were still on a carefully regimented healing schedule. One half hour walk a day combined with pottering around the garden was about the doctor recommended stretch of things. And sometimes James had to encourage Q to do even that much.

_“But I’m tired, I feel like I’m a dairy cow.” Q groused as he stretched. James had started going back to work during the weekdays, but made sure to come home in time for an evening stretch of the legs with Q… maybe just a little bit to parade his pup throughout the neighbourhood._

_Not to mention the pram. They’d got a fine buggy. He’d been assured that it was the ‘sports car’ of the buggy world and Alice adored the wind ruffling her occasional strands of hair. If Q looked at him when he got it out with a touch of lip-biting amusement, so be it. After all, he’d seen he modifications that Q doodled about putting on it._

_“The doctor said one good walk per day from three weeks on.” Q grumbled a rather petulant mockery but none the less went to pull some shoes on. James went to lift Alice from her small nest-bed._

_“Its you and me against your Mummy now, pup, you have to remember that he’s prone to being a dweller if not properly stimulated.”_

_“Are we going or what?” Q griped mildly, wrapped up in no end of warm clothes and looking every inch as tired as he claimed. James felt pause for a mere moment, but reminded himself that part of Q’s fatigue was undoubtedly due to boredom. That, and last night’s cry-fest at three AM._

_He loved their pup. He did. They both did. But sometimes, well, ‘parenthood’ had never had a more clear meaning than when you were trying to clean spit up off your mate who was trying to clean a diaper explosion from a bawling pup with both of you laughing because the alternative was to cry…_

_Brushing the thought away with a shudder, James settled their innocent-looking and chubby-cheeked pup into her buggy and departed on their evening stroll. Q tired by the end even with a chocolate-covered waffle half way round to keep him going, and had awkwardly settled into the couch at home with a sigh of relief. Still, he looked a bit brighter, and Alice was wakeful and up for a bath as much as a three-week-old could be._

_Their routine had become rather settled for the evenings, which seemed to be helping everybody. They would walk, Alice would have a bath provided by one of them, then she would have her roughly six-oh-clock meal which was only acceptable straight from the source, evidently, and they’d tuck her in for a hopeful amount of time after some sort of gobbledygook story._

_Q fed and soothed Alice as usual and James carried her up for her bed-time story. Today, it was another section from Shackleton’s journey to the North Pole, which Bond had been getting through slowly. He found the detail soothing, the adventure engaging and Alice found him soothing and the varieties of his voice engaging._

_On weekends they attempted to read her story books together, putting on different voices and often making themselves laugh for longer than they had breath for, but Alice enjoyed that too, even if she occasionally got distracted with Q’s available chest._

Tonight had been much the same routine, this time Q reading an extract from ‘ _Treasure Island_ ’ that was an unexpected childhood favourite of the omega’s. Apparently it, and other pirate books, were the only ones Sherlock would deign to read aloud, for however brief a time, to his younger sibling.

Alice had had her evening meal, her couple of bottle-feeds past that point, and was now somewhere between nightly feeds.

James himself was without doubt as to what was keeping him up currently; a particularly determined erection. He’d been suffering an increasing level of sexual frustration for the last two weeks, to be honest, when his hand had ceased to be enough. He didn’t know how Q was doing it, except that omegas were strange creatures in that their libido simply seemed to turn off when it wasn’t biologically helpful or imperative. Such as with a newborn.

A small, sacrilegious part of the alpha wished that he could adopt the same strategy, at least to save himself the agony. But no, not with Q still by his side and warm and looking after his pup… Christ all it took was for his mate to bend over or offer a smile for him to get it up like a teenager in a swimming pool.

God forbid that earlier he’d gotten home just in time to see Q stripping off his shirt, and wiping of all things _whipped cream_ from his stomach, with a guilty expression as he made himself a cheeky desert that had spilled. He’d about spent himself then and there. Certainly everything had been downhill for the rest of the evening.

“Damn you pup.” James murmured, not unkindly. He was, however, still frustrated, and Q was still right there and exposed…

Almost without thinking it, his fingers ghosted up to nudge and rub at Q’s left nipple, the small pout on his face gradually fading into lust as he swallowed. Q uttered a soft, half sighed moan and rolled further onto his back, closer to the touch. Emboldened, James kept it up, memorising the way the already hardened nub stiffened yet further. Mesmerised by it, in fact.

Slowly, he slipped his free arm around Q, head tucked over the younger man’s shoulder, and brought both hands to the task. Q buckled a bit, shifting and making sleepy moans until James accidentally brushed his erection against the swell of the omega’s arse and jerked, himself. His fingers twitched to squeeze and Q woke with a muffled confusion as milk leaked a bit and James hurriedly arranged himself into a more platonic hold. Feeling of all things a little flustered and mollified, James stroked Q’s shoulder instead.

Safe ground, the shoulder.

“Mmm what? Is Alice fussing?” Q murmured, still half asleep, but thankfully associating the leaking with his child’s cries rather that his mate’s impatiently wandering hands. Feeling a little shamefaced that he had resorted to not only groping his mate in the dark, but for what he was about to do, James cleared his throat.

“Mm, a little, I’ll get her, you rest.”

“You’re a diamond.” Q breathed out, dozily, and slowly shifted into a pup-holding position as James slipped out as unobtrusively as one could whilst still hard and obviously so.

“Sorry pup, this is just the start of your servitude spent getting me out of fixes.” James whispered to Alice as he picked her up from where she too had been sleeping and heard her start bawling in earnest at the disruption. Wincing, James noted that he would need to solve this little problem soon and excused himself to the bathroom after uniting his unknowing mate and pup.

-00Q00-

Alice’s first real developmental milestone came on one rainy evening when both parents were enjoying a floor-picnic in lieu of the garden dinner they had originally planned. The young pup was lying between them on a pup-nesting pad Q had brought. It was a nice, comfortable but firm padding that could be easily incorporated into a larger nest.

“Pass the spring rolls?”

“Mm, oh, sorry pup.” James apologised as a small drop of hoisin sauce dripped onto their daughter’s face. Q tutted as James reached for a cloth –since when had they needed so many cloths?- and wiped at their disturbed baby’s scrunching face.

“Honestly, dropping things on your own child, the shame.”

“I saw what happened the other day with the jam.” Q coughed a little.

“That is entirely irrelevant.” James smirked and then paused in his ministrations as Alice mewled in complaint and weakly rubbed her face over the nest pad to turn the other way.

“Oh you can turn! You can turn, oh who’s so clever?” Q cooed instantly, army-crawling forwards himself to nuzzle their pup’s face. There were a few whuffles in response and fist clenches at the recognised comfort and scent of Q. James’ hand fell in wonderment to his pup’s warm little back, spanning it and rubbing encouragingly.

It was several days later when Q paused on his way upstairs whilst passing James. The alpha purposefully did not look up from where he was laying Alice on the nesting pad.

“You know she won’t do it on cue right?”

“Don’t step on other people’s dreams Q.” The omega just chuckled and walked past as James set up the camera. As Alice picked up on the scent of her mother moving she turned her head just in time to be caught on film.

James didn’t let Q live that one down, crowing his success and kissing praise onto their daughter’s affection-drunk face.

-00Q00-

Bath time with Alice was rapidly becoming one of Q’s favourite times of day. He expected that would change when the pup became old enough to resist the soothing lap of water. But for now, he was happy.

James had to stay late at work in order to run through some mission training with the latest batch of 00 contenders. Q had kept a remote eye on things for a while, but found he’d had no time for any of the checking up or part-time work he’d planned to be doing at this stage. When Alice was awake, Q was usually feeding, changing or being besotted by her. When the pup was asleep, so was Q. Most of the time anyway, the rest was spent tidying, cleaning, resting and all manner of things the omega simply hadn’t factored in to his maternity leave ‘free time’. He didn’t like the feeling of missing out on work, but evidently he’d been foolish in his assumptions of being able to jump right back in.

Either way, James would be home soon, but for now Q was in charge of bath time. And after having to force himself to take the regimented half-hour walk with Alice in her sling –Q preferred it to the pram even if it was a pain for his back- the omega was thoroughly enjoying soaking his limbs.

Technically it might be easier to bath Alice alone, but Q couldn’t resist the cuddle time. For a while he sat in the shallow bath playing with Alice’s tiny feet and toes. She was fascinating to study. He was so mesmerised by the pup that he didn’t hear James coming home until the alpha appeared rather swiftly around the door of the bathroom and sighed in relief.

“I thought you weren’t in for a moment, thank god for your scents’ gorgeous…” The man moved closer before raising a joking hand and eyebrow at Q. “You’re not using scented soap are you?” Q offered a smirk.

“Would I do that to you? Welcome home.” James knelt and leant over the bath to give Q a kiss, did the same to Alice, and then opened his eyes and let out a small strangled noise that turned into a cough.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine, fine.” The alpha’s eyes drifted up the length of the bath before landing on Q’s blinking eyes. “Let’s get you both out of there,” Letting the slightly odd behaviour slide, Q gave Alice one last cuddle and kiss before relinquishing her to his towel-wielding mate.

James scooped up the young pup and dried her gently before wrapping the girl in a nappy and swaddling blanket, leaving the room to settle her down on the bed ready for her six o’clock meal. Rousing himself from happily watching the deft way James moved with their pup Q sighed contentedly and shifted to get up.

“Here, let me help.” Q rolled his eyes good-naturedly but let the alpha have his way. It was quite nice being fussed over, given that everything in his body still felt occasionally off or just achy and painful. Sometimes he preferred to bathe or shower alone, without James or Alice, simply because occasionally he still found a little blood coming away.

Being nearly lifted out of the bath without his hips having to do a thing, and getting bundled into a towel and then robe by loving hands, was an almost incandescent pleasure tonight.

“Thank you, should we get take-out tonight? I don’t fancy cooking much.” Q suggested as he curled up on the bed with Alice, settling her in for a nurse.

“Good plan.” James said, sidling in behind Q and pulling him close with an arm. The omega leant on James’ warm, solid shoulder happily, nuzzling in close. James cleared his throat again as if to keep from coughing. “Should I call Mycroft? He might even bring us something.” Q fuzzled his brow a bit in surprise; since when did James, well, anyone really, voluntarily invite around Mycroft to an impromptu take away?

“Um, alright?”

“Excellent.” More surprised than put off by the turn of events, it would be nice to see My again after all, Q settled down to let the evening play out… And to keep an eye on James for any signs of a developing fever.

-00Q00-

Mycroft seemed to be glaring at James a lot from the instant he came round, even coming through the door his mate was greeted with a suspicious ‘James.’

It was really quite confusing, and Q wasn’t sure he’d ever understand alpha politics. However, Mycroft had turned to the omega with an indulgent smile, quickly wrapped him in a hug and proceeded to run hands down the sides of his belly.

“Aster you are looking wonderful, and how is my niece?” Q smiled, imagining the odd behaviour had passed and honestly more than happy to be favourited by his oldest brother.

“She’s just taking a nap, but you can come see her, she’ll probably wake in a couple of hours.” Q smiled at James, who’s returning one was slightly weak and strained and led Mycroft upstairs with a frown.

“James has been very odd this evening, it was his idea to call you, you know, not that I’m not happy to see you.”

“I gathered. And it is always a pleasure to visit you, Star.”

Mycroft gazed at Alice for a moment, who was sleeping with a fist nearly in her mouth that Q gently removed.

“Perfect pup.” The alpha praised, and Q beamed. Knowing his daughter by now too, he gently scooped her up, the babe remaining asleep, and carried her downstairs to sleep where he could keep an eye on her. Mycroft watched him with a light in his eye that Q tried not to gloat over too much as he settled the little lady down on her nest-bed.

“How’s things with Eve?” Q asked. He knew most of the details of course, since Eve had been over a bit and on the phone even more, still, it was nice to hear Mycroft baffling about the subject in a hilariously stiff-upper-lipped manner until James brought the food to the table.

Mycroft stayed till late, and took the opportunity to corner Q alone with the pretence of helping with the dishes. The alpha in fact simply stacked the washed plates with little aim to help, but that was more or less expected. If there was one chore at home that Mycroft had point-blank refused, it was the dishes.

“And how is your recovery going, I trust you’re taking the doctor prescribed amount of exercise?”

“Yes yes, tiring though it is- not too tiring, don’t worry.” Q added on quickly as Mycroft looked set to blow.

“But you _are_ being allowed the time you need to recover, in all departments?” Q frowned at the insisting tone and grinned a little.

“What are you expecting me to say? That James is forcing me mountain buggying? No everything’s fine.” Q chortled to himself as Mycroft sighed and ran a hand through Q’s hair.

“Its to be expected, I suppose, you being an omega and all. The block-off system truly is an impressive one.” Before Q could comment in bafflement Mycroft kissed him on the cheek and walked over to where James was sitting talking to a rising Alice.

“…Alphas.” Q murmured in wonderment, shaking his head, and went to closely watch Mycroft lifting and quietly conversing with their little pup.

“Greetings little one. My you are growing aren’t you? Mm being good for your parents I hope? Excellent.” A small hand curled around Mycroft’s finger and the alpha raised an eyebrow. “Flatterer, are you, well with those of a simple-minded nature it will in fact get you anywhere.”

“Stop encouraging her to be Machiavellian.” Q admonished, settling down only for Alice to smell her offered food supply and wave little arms. The omega sighed.

“But she has progressed to learning association so I suppose it's only a matter of time.”

“I’ll get the bottle.” James announced with a grin, since the nightly hours, where possible, were encouraged bottle ones.

“May I?” Mycroft requested, and though surprised both parents nodded their agreement. Accepting the offered warm bottle, Mycroft arranged the pup and seemed to happily spend the next ten minutes feeding her. After that Alice refused more in favour of starting to wail. Mycroft looked alarmed at the fact that tears were occurring.

“But she doesn’t smell dirty.” The man complained, bewildered. James and Q laughed a touch psychotically as only parents could, forming a seamless and endless dance of walking around and bouncing their baby, cuddling her and distracting.

“Crying is her only way to talk to us.” James supplied.

“So sometimes she just does it even if there’s nothing conceivable wrong.” Q added.

“Just another joyous form of communication.” James finished with, collecting Alice from Q’s arms for a turn of rocking the baby through the air until the movement seemed to soothe her. Q glanced over at Mycroft to find the man staring at him oddly.

“What?” Shrugging in an attempt at nonchalance Mycroft answered the soft question.

“You never did. Cry that is, with no reason… it was as if you’d learnt-“

 _That no one would come_. Q finished off internally as Mycroft cut himself short. After a moment he walked over to place a hand on Mycroft’s shoulder.

“They would now. I know people would come now.” The gentle, matter of fact tone and smile earned him a rather nice hug where the omega took the time to nudge slightly into Mycroft’s squishy places.

-00Q00-

“It’s becoming impossible.” James growled. Alec obviously found his situation far too funny. “The other night I had to call his damn brother around just so the man’s pointed glaring would keep me from jumping my own mate.” Alec simply roared with laughter for a moment before choking it back, shoulders shaking.

The man invited himself over to dinner when it became obvious that James was on edge at work. He’d snapped one of the new Q-Branch gun prototypes nearly clean in half when it wouldn’t shoot straight. The minion had left in tears.

The damn branch sent an e-mail home to Q, who had reprimanded the double oh, reminded his branch to always have a member of safety-personnel present when testing weapons for the first time -especially with 00’s- and then fell about laughing manically in a phone call to Eve that he’d overheard the tail end of.

Clearly, though amused, Alec had noticed there was more amiss than shoddy craftsmanship and announced staying at his second home for the night in order to visit his pack. James had of course grumbled for a bit without any real back to it and welcomed him to dinner… if with a threat to not destroy anything or let Q rope them into a pack nest again. Alec was more than happy with the suggestion, merrily stating that he and Q could nest alone with Alice, and James could cook them dinner.

“You couldn’t even take a month?”

“Don’t laugh.” James growled, dropping the dishcloth into the sink and glancing back to where Q sat, feeding Alice and lackadaisically licking tea off his lips. “Look at him, how is it fair that he can look like that and not be in the slightest way horny?” Alec’s shoulders twitched as he struggled to reign in his laugh, but sobered and got down to business soon enough.

“Sounds to me like you need to do some heavy petting.” He shrugged. James glowered.

“Try telling that to Q.”

“ _Have_ you? Tried telling that to Q?” The silence was answer enough and Alec sighed dramatically. “All I can do is speak from experience, my friend, but for any omega it’s always the mood. Set the right mood, he’s all yours. At least for a mutual wank off. Try and nab him after Alice pokes him in the eye with his own glasses and, well, not sexy, so they say.” He received a grunt in response.

“Well, any of that is true enough.”

“Hey, can’t hurt to try.” Alec slapped James encouragingly on the shoulder. “Oh hey! I saw a video once, it was with these two pregnant omega twins and-“ James’ hand landed heavily on his shoulder.

“One; the less I know about your personal kinks the better… I know enough already from the navy,” Alec nodded, that was an easily conceded point on both their half’s. “Two; if you’re going to try and seduce an omega into the sack, the last words you should start with are ‘pregnant twin omegas video’. If you’ve learnt nothing else from me, remember that one.”

Alec shoved him with a fowl name and James grinned, feeling back in command of his mate and sex situation. Although it wouldn’t do to gloat too much; rather he should wait to count his chickens until he’d seen Q’s reaction to the alpha launching the arousal-offensive on his unsuspecting, recovering mate.

-00Q00-

“Well someone’s grown. Hello little girl. How’s she doing?” Q dropped his bag of Alice-accompaniments to the floor and stretched gratefully for the other omega taking the pup’s weight for a while. Daniel held the baby beta like a pro, deftly poking her chubby cheek whilst large, querying eyes blinked up at him.

“She’s doing good. Gone through her first growth spurt.” Daniel made a sympathetic grimace and noise, leading Q through into the kitchen. Stewie stood from where he was playing with a plastic cook set and gazed in amazement at once again seeing a pup smaller than himself.

“Hello Stewie,” Q greeted, bending down. The omega pup made a noise and waddle-walked over to cling to Q whilst still looking up at the new interloper.

“Babey puhppeee!” Stewie half demanded half cooed, shaking little hands that were clutching Q’s cardigan. Daniel chuckled and Q stood to temporarily retrieve Alice and squat back down to re-introduce the pair. Daniel knelt with amused, intrigued eyes behind his own pup.

“Stewie you remember my pup, Alice, she’s very new but you met a few weeks ago.” The baby omega stared with comedic wide eyes into Alice’s rather less cognisant ones, then to Q’s stomach where his hands travelled.

“Buh…” The confused look at the sight of Q’s diminished stomach and the new pup seemed to defeat Stuart’s mind as he scrunched up his face in deep thought. Of course, for most of the time the toddler had known Q he’d been round with pup. He might not be anywhere close to the shape he once had, but Alice’s feeding demands had certainly set the quartermaster’s fat back a bit. Q caught Daniel’s eyes and both had to look away in order to not laugh.

“Mmmnnnuuhh babey Nuluh!” The child finally declared as if reaching enlightenment with contentment and proceeded to pat all over Alice’s small, onesie-covered body with delight as the two older omegas gave in to gentle laughter.

Stewie remained mesmerised by Alice as she sat in her carrier in the living room, the two parents sharing tea as the younger omega gawped.

“Mathew’s been getting into trouble at school for taking some of the other children’s pencils and the like. He’s still struggling with the concept of ‘not mine’. Seems to be taking his time learning it. But then it's another alpha pup doing that every month at their school by the sound of it.” Q huffed a laugh at the man’s exasperation over his oldest alpha pup, once again glancing fondly over at Alice and being thankful for both her beta nature and her current lack of ability to move very much. Although every movement she _did_ do left Q cooing and reaching for the camera on his phone.

“And Beth?” Daniel laughed at that one.

“Oh, same as ever. Asking the first question that comes into her mind, picking a new favourite thing every day. Last week she wouldn’t stop crying until we brought her a coconut. Of course she didn’t like it-“ Q laughed, well imagining the consternated expression on the young girl’s face at the disappointment.

“How about you, recovering alright?” Q sighed and slumped back a bit, watching Stewie poking Alice’s wriggling feet.

“It’s taking longer than I ever thought it would. I always knew pushing out a baby would be hard but-“

“You haven’t felt like yourself in about ten months?” Daniel finished with a knowing grin. Q replied in kind and chuckled a bit ruefully.

“Some days I can barely manage a half hour walk, and-oh god- how long do you have to keep bleeding for?” Daniel gesticulated wildly around a mouthful of tea before swallowing.

“Damn I know! It was one month after Mathew and sometimes I still would wake up to find some!”

“Same! I mean; I knew that giving birth felt like abuse but still!” Q could hardly get the words out for laughter and Daniel was slapping his thighs in helpless chokes of his own. Stewie came over to be a part of it and Alice begun getting fussy for food.

Q settled to let the pup nurse as Daniel fetched a bottle of juice for his own and the two of them continued regaling the various horrors and indecencies of childbirth and pregnancy, along with newborn-mishaps.

He hadn’t realised it, but it was exactly what he needed to joke about it and let off steam with someone who had been there.

-00Q00-

James had everything set, everything prepared. Nothing would ruin tonight. Nothing. That particularly felt imperative. At first he’d thought of asking one of either Alec or Eve to pup-sit, but he couldn’t bare the thought of letting her out of his sight. He would have had even less idea about how to broach that topic with Q. Also, his gorgeous pup and mate were going to be living under the same roof for years; James had to prove –to Q and to himself- that this was possible without organising a sitter every time they enjoyed each other.

They’d gone through the usual evening nursing, James remaining tactile throughout the day and keeping close contact with both mate and pup. He’d worked only a half-day, ensuring that Q was free from stress. They’d walked along Q’s favourite path for their constitutional, Alice was being good as gold and he’d made sure to play with her a good amount during the day so she’d be happy and plum tuckered by evening. Tomorrow was Saturday; meaning Bond could do the early feeding instead of Q…

It was perfect. One short sleepy bath for Alice, and story time, and the pup was out like a light, sucking her fist softly. Q crooned over her for a few moments, and James adjusted her legs and sleepsuit to ensure no painful wrinkles and complete comfort.

“Sleep well Almione.” Q hummed, and James bent to kiss her forehead, admiring the arrival of a new singular strand of hair as he did.

“Good night pup.” With one last lingering touch the alpha attempted to send soothing and sleepy thoughts and scents to the little one. If they could just get two hours then this could be perfection.

Ridiculously, the whole thing felt like his initial courtship of Q. Christ the nerves he had wound himself into the first time he went to kiss the man… Shaking his head ruefully at the image of his younger self, James snagged the pup monitor and followed Q to the bathroom.

Usually, this space of time would be occupied with brief, hasty showers for one of them with the monitor in hand and the door open, the other starting on dinner or reheating a Mycroft food package. Q turned around in surprise to see James coming in after him and setting the bath to run, the door remaining ajar.

“James, what-“

“You’ve been walking stiffly today, come here.” This wasn’t a lie; Q hadn’t been walking fluidly for the last month. Longer including the pregnancy. But the timing was rather fruitful. Q huffed a laugh but moved closer regardless.

“I’m sure I’m fine, and a bath, really?”

“It’s relaxing.” James pointed out, and perched on the edge of said bath, reaching to take Q’s hips in hand.

The poor abused bone structure that he loved so much deserved a bit of a massage. Q sighed as his mate’s hands slid just under the waistband of trousers and fingers dug rhythmically into tight muscles. Slender hands came to rest on James’ shoulders as the alpha worked, gradually feeling Q’s weight increase against him as the bathroom warmed up and the tub filled.

The feel of smooth skin beneath his hands was mesmerising, and after several minutes James pressed a kiss to the exposed skin there and stood again, turning off the water in a fluid move and grinning at Q.

“What?” Q laughed, rubbing his eye under glasses and looking more relaxed.

“Share a bath with me?” James offered, in what he hoped was a casual and cheerful manner. Q nodded, smiling, and kissed James briefly before stripping.

The man gulped and tore his gaze away from the long lines of Q’s body, but it was too late, the image shooting right down to his cock. Attempting to appear the self-assured man he was and not the flustering boy he felt, James followed suit and stripped off his clothes. Stepping to make sure Q didn’t fall on his way into the bath. The younger man turned around to glance at him and, rather gratifyingly, blushed at the sight of his thickening shaft before sinking into the water. Smiling, James slid in behind Q and brought the omega causally to his chest.

They still slotted together perfectly. His cock nestled immediately where it belonged between his mate’s cheeks, engorged flesh forcing the two perfect cushions of arse apart as it swelled. Q wiggled slightly as he felt himself spread almost innocuously.

“James, I can’t do that. You know I’m not, um, better there yet.” Chuckling a little, and squeezing Q reassuringly, James picked up the shampoo instead.

“Relax, Q. I’m not expecting anything, but you’ll have to forgive an alpha his reactions to seeing you naked. To feeling you like this again.” As if to demonstrate his point James slowly rubbed a hand up Q’s front and to his neck, tilting a willing head back into a submissive curve of throat in order to wash the man’s hair.

He was rewarded with Q’s slightly shuddered breath. Smiling to himself, James dedicated his hands to seeking every spot and making every movement through Q’s hair and scalp that made the omega come apart. And he did, beautifully, body becoming limp and supplicant against the agent’s own.

Keeping one ear trained on any sounds from Alice in the bedroom or on the monitor, and attempting with unknown might to keep from thrusting between the wet globes of Q’s rump, the alpha tried to follow his game plan.

Relax, entice, arouse, satisfy.

The plan was simple enough, so long as a certain little miss didn’t wake up.

James silently promised that he would cuddle her with skin contact all night long if she could just sleep for another hour and a half.

“God James that’s good. Do you want me to…” Q’s hand was moving against his mate’s hip, the other squeezing the alpha’s thigh in an entirely distracting way. But no, he had a plan.

“Just relax, trust me I’m enjoying myself plenty.” He assured, hands sweeping seductively along the column of Q’s pale throat in massage as he rinsed out the soap from dark hair. “Let me, okay.”

Q’s response didn’t have words save a long, instinctive moan that shot straight south. Biting his lip against thrusting, dick thrumming and impatient for attention, James took up some body wash and started to coat it luxuriously over Q.

He started with each hand and finger, rubbing and delighting in the play of skin on skin, Q’s digits tying to tangle with his own. Up long arms and over shoulders, under armpits where scent was strong and broad strokes all the way down to the top of Q’s thighs, hands seamless against Q’s silken skin under the water.

The omega whined and stretched into his strokes with an uttered curse.

“Oh, damn you James.” It was hard to keep the gratified smirk from his voice.

“Should I stop, am I hurting you?” He worried, mouth moving to press against Q’s pulse as he talked.

“No.” The word was almost a mewl as James hands pressed upwards again and rubbed against sore chest. “Ehn fuck,” Q cursed as a tiny dribble of milk squirted into the soap-cloudy water, quickly lost. James stilled his hands to almost a rolling flex of his fingers, casually as he could adjusting their positions in the bath into something less maddening, but he only ended up riling himself up more as he seemed to lock further between Q’s cheeks.

“Shh shh.”

“But, Alice, she’s-“

“Sleeping, just relax Q.” His hands vacated their favoured place of Q’s nipples and swished back down to start rubbing into the man’s thighs.

With a hitch of breath and small gasped noise Q seemed to surrender, legs falling further apart, becoming trapped on either side of Bond’s deliciously. And finally, finally the man was hard.

“James, James please,”

“Patience, love.” Certainly the alpha himself had waited long enough, and despite Q’s hands somehow managing to reach down to grope his mate’s buttocks James insisted on completing his cleaning of Q all the way down to his toes.

The omega’s clever fingers had found James’ own cleft and were teasing deliciously over his puckered anus and perineum in that way that always seemed so perverse somehow. To push fingers into Q always seemed like something his mate had been perfectly designed for, in the reverse, when it happened, it took merely the skate of Q’s fingers for him to feel like an unravelled, filthy sort of whore. It wasn’t a pleasure he allowed himself often.

Stepping up the game James’ own fingers continued to massage Q’s innermost thigh, hips rocking ever so to drag himself against Q’s entrance until they were both flushed and panting.

“Please James for the love of god touch me.” Q pleaded, a beautiful mix of whimper and demand.

“With pleasure.” Q gasped as one hand grasped his cock and the other reached down to fondle tight balls. The omega’s fingers nearly stilled save for prodding at James’ own entrance in a way that suggested what he was craving for. But the alpha wouldn’t, couldn’t risk hurting him like that even if Q wanted it. Instead he thrusted against the place they both so desperately wanted him and tasked his fingers with toying with the cock and balls in hand.

Q sometimes, James knew, found it hard to climax from stimulation of this sort alone –some sort of evolutionary design in omega males- but it had been so long for both of them that even the fondles James favoured him with started to reach a peak. When one of the alpha’s hands slid back up to Q’s nipple and made play of it how he truly wanted Q began to gasp and shake and finally spilled as James, mind darkening deliciously with the truism of it, milked him from both ends.

With mate whimpering and moaning in pleasured aftershocks in his arms, James reached down to cup himself beneath where he was thrusting between Q’s cheeks, the increased friction and speeding rhythm causing him to growl and thrust hard, Q bouncing in his lap and squirming from where he was still being milked wantonly by the alpha.

Not even sure why it caused him such pleasure, and faced with a sudden vivid image of Q with slick-wet thighs and wet lips and leaking chest sprawled on their bed, mouth around James’ cock as the omega in real life pressed the tip of one finger and knuckle up into his trembling body sent him nearly roaring into completion, jerking rather helplessly.

Both lay almost ridiculously exhausted in the bath for long minutes afterwards, catching their breaths. Q slid his finger out with a gentling kiss to James’ mouth as he hissed, and the alpha ceased his teasing of the omega’s nipple, reddened and swollen now, to rub his belly instead.

After several more moments Q broke out a short, breathless giggle and then settled, turning to face James and kiss him properly.

“I hadn’t realised I needed that.” Another kiss was added that James happily hummed into.

“I’m happy to remind you now and then.” Q’s face softened fondly.

“Have you been feeling that since Christmas?”

“It’s fine, Q.” James assured, falsely, but knew this would probably still not occur again for another month. Clearly Q could see through him.

“If we have opportunity, maybe we can be more… adventurous again, but,” Q raised a finger. “Not much of this, okay?” He gestured to his lovely chest and dusky nipples, almost making the alpha’s mouth water at the sight. Which was ridiculous, having just gotten off and feeling pleasantly leaden. “They’re doing that for a purpose after all.” James sat them both up and fixed Q a serious look in the eye.

“Q, anything your body does, is something I’m going to want to explore.” In settling this fact, James ducked to kiss each nub, feeling Q shiver and protest weakly before he drew back. “But I do promise to be careful, and not to indulge often. Your chest is Alice’s domain first and foremost, after all.” Q looked almost bewildered at the statement.

“You’re allocating the two of you separate parts of my body?” He questioned, disbelieving. “Christ what must it be like in an alpha’s head?” James couldn’t help his laugh at Q’s dumbfounded voice.

“Like nothing you would imagine. Now come on, maybe we can get in some sleep before the pup’s awake.

Q still looked no less obscene to James, as he climbed out of the bath, one droplet of water honest to god clinging to a nipple before dropping off and nearly causing him to groan out loud in frustration. He wasn’t sure how easy it would be to keep that promise to Q, or if he could even do it.

Alice only gave them ten minutes of dozing before waking up loud and hungry. James, feeling a both chipper and a bit guilty for toying with her milk source, made good on his promise for all-night skin contact none the less. If Alice rather optimistically nuzzled and then winged at James’ sub-par chest, well, at least she was becoming a pro at handling the less than satisfying bottle-formula like a champ.

-00Q00-

Day times during the week were something of a struggle for Q. Alice slept a lot and ate a lot, and generally looked adorable, but wasn’t very interactive. He’d begun slowly catching up with Q Branch and very, very occasionally looking through bits of code and the like. Only for a few hours for the last three weeks.

Since Alice was five weeks old, and Q was both recovering and going stir crazy alone all day, he’d taken up his age old past time of looking to the internet for help. On there, was a nice little idea about a set of challenges to do with your pup; one adventure together per week. Given that Q’s latest house-bound pastime involved photographing Alice whenever possible, he thought to take it outside.

After all, it would be nice to have something  
to regale James with other than how long Alice had slept for during the day and just how tired he was feeling.

There was also, rather more personally a good reason to go outside. He was nervous to. Not with James maybe, but certainly alone. His previously average nesting instincts had increased dramatically and seemed to include the need to batten down all hatches and keep everyone safe and warm and indoors.

He didn’t want to loose part of himself simply because it was easier to stay inside where it was safe. He didn’t want Alice to grow up like that either. Difficult habit though it was to break.

So; one challenge a week. He could manage that. Q took a deep breath, and dressed not too heavily given the surprisingly warm weather at the beginning of March. Alice was wrapped up warmer, given her tiny nature, and curled close to Q’s chest in the baby-sling that his trusty work force had given him. He’d picked the activity at random earlier in the week, drawing it out of a hat with all the suggested challenges from the website along with a few others he thought of.

Luckily, the first choice had fit in with both doctor’s orders and something fairly easy. Literally a walk in the park. Well, feeding the ducks at Regents Park pond, but even that involved a cab drive and walk and bread collection.

Q spent most of the time in the cab huddling Alice to him and recalling Sherlock’s story of the Killer Cabbie.

“Who needs the park? Q murmured into Alice’s hair as they got out of the cab and Q swiftly turned back the way he had come. “We can just walk through the smoggy streets of London can’t we?”

Because he’d never be able to walk both round the park and back to their house, and he wasn’t about to get in another cab with his heart already beating a bit fast.

The walk home was a bit longer than his prescribed 30 mins, but Q could handle it.

Alice wrinkled her nose in the strange scents wafting by her.

“I know, but a lot of the world smells like this I’m afraid, so you’ll have to learn it sooner or later.”

His quiet pep talk luckily went unreported by any fellow passersby and an exhausted Q managed to get back to their house safe and sound if feeling a little guilty about copping out.

So much for being ready for an adventure.

-00Q00-

Whatever part of James had considered himself to be free from sentimentality now had to make an embarrassing surrender at the front lines. As if mating Q wasn’t enough to confirm this fact, Alice certainly was.

Yesterday he’d been called into M’s office whilst at work to help the man and Tanner maintain a crisis mission. R was down with the flu and 005 was undergoing physiotherapy at the worst possible time and out of contact. The Q branch team leaders were holding their own but his well-seasoned knowledge was of more help.

After a quick text to Q that he’d be home late, the exhausting slog of frustrating hours begun. Trying to sort out target from nuisance and battling with jurisdiction issues from the FBI along with a on-site team who were well trained but desperately waiting on their double-oh backup, who’d been held up at gun point on a train as point of fact… it was very messy and something of a botch job. The best that could be said was that they had handled the mission.

By the time he’d got home and crawled into bed at 4am, managing a mercy-meal in between that Q had set aside for him, the ex-agent had been out like a light. He hadn’t woken once until 10 on Saturday and opened his eyes with an all-consuming need to hold his daughter.

Not seeing her for the day was too much time. Throwing off the covers James wasted little time in following his nose and ears to the quiet sound of Q changing their pup in the bathroom.

“Really, the kicking is not at all appreciated. Yes yes I know you’re strong.” James would have taken time to laugh at Q’s one-sided argument if he wasn’t so keen to touch them both. His hands found their way to the omega’s gradually returning waist, causing a slight jump, and lent forwards to kiss Alice on the head. “James, feeling better?”

“Mm.” He stood up to press a kiss to Q’s neck before leaning his chin on the man’s shoulder to keep watching his pup, thumbs absently sliding up and down soft sides. “She didn’t cry last night.” He stated, somewhat surprised, somewhat put out because exhausted though he’d been soothing their pup with the night-time bottle had a certain tranquillity and purpose that settled nicely. Q huffed a quiet laugh.

“She did, you were just too deep asleep to hear it. Funnily enough, I don’t think she was too impressed to see me poll up instead of you. She’s been fussing all night.”

“She has?” One of the alpha’s hands found its way to their pup’s warm head at the news, at the knowledge that for the first time he hadn’t awoken to their child’s cries. It left him feeling a little wonky even as Alice wriggled and giggled with a big smile of delight and Q beamed.

“See, she missed her father, all’s well in the world now. Nice to know where you stand in the pecking order.” Q reflected, sarcasm more lilted with amusement than anything and James absently kissed him again just in case there was any hidden sting there. It was obvious enough though that Alice adored her mother, so he wasn’t too worried. “Just let me finish up here and then I’ll grab you some coffee, you still look a bit zombified.”

“I can finish changing her, does she need a wash?” Q bent and snuffled along their giggling girl’s neck in lieu of a response and straightened nodding.

“Won’t do any harm, do you want breakfast?”

“Please. We won’t be long.”

-00Q00-

Alice was a warm pup by nature. A little radiator. Q didn’t know which of him and his pup found the other more comforting to be with. Now two months old as of yesterday, Alice had become a happily pudgy baby.

“Gggrrooooooo” Only in the last week had Alice started producing a wider range of noises than her usual sobs and burps. Each such cooing noise inspired a grin in James and Q. The first one they had probably overreacted to, cooing back until red in the face and their pup looked mildly terrified. Q smiled down as the small creature.

“Yes, hello.”

“Ooowahhh.”

“Do you think so?”

“Oooo oooo.”

“Mm you are quite the genius aren’t you, yes. You are. No need to be shy. Bit of a chunky monkey too. But only in the best of ways. Suits you, really.” Alice watched with wide curious little baby-blue eyes. The light hair on top of her largely bald head was, as usual, stuck up like a scientist.

“Oh I bet my branch would just love you, you could be their mascot.” Having decided that fascination was overrated, Alice begun sticking her lips out and searching for her next feed instead.

“Priorities eh? Here you go.” Once attached, the pup was a happy camper and curled little fingers contentedly between their two chests. The pudgy little pup was bare to give her a break from nappies and thoroughly enjoying the skin contact with Q’s shirtless chest.

It was a bit easier, this month. Alice slept usually through half the night before she woke up and started burbling. Q remained fairly exhausted anyway, working overtime to produce enough milk and keep Alice looked after.

James arrived home at five thirty and grinned at the pair of them. Q had been giving Alice a light show with the rainbow coloured torch he’d been perfecting for her, and she was content to follow the light around the room whilst Q took the opportunity to slump into the sofa.

“Hello love, Almione,” the baby watched and gurgled as Q smiled and rose to greet James with a kiss.

“Good day?”

“One of the trainees got spooked by a car backfiring.”

“Ah.” James’ current group of trainees really didn’t seem to be up to much. The alpha came around the sofa and leaned down to scoop up their daughter.

“And how’s my Almione.” Q laughed.

“We’re going to confuse her.”

“You told me she responds to a chimp’s voice just as much as ours until three months, I think we’re safe. Besides, you picked ‘Hermione’.”

“That I did.”

“Grrooooooouhh.” James raised an eyebrow.

“You grew? Surely not.”

“Grooooouuhhwahhh!”

“She insists.” Q pointed out, bending down to kiss their pup’s sparsely fluffed head.

“Blurrlluh.” Alice looked over at Q and captured James’ poking finger at the same time, a confused look on her face as she briefly lifted her heavy head to look at the digit in her grasp, sniffing.

“That’s right. Daddy smells of guns.” Bond confirmed encouragingly. Q burst out laughing and dropped onto the sofa when his knees went weak, clutching his stomach.

“Nooo no we can’t just talk about guns!” He tried through a laughter-weak voice. James started to chuckle.

“Again, until the chimp thing ceases to be of relevance, we have free reign.” He confirmed, laughter building as he watched Q’s hysterics.

“BAHA!” The sudden noise from between them, followed by little squeals and floppy-sounding giggles, had them both turn to each other in amazement.

“She laughs.”

“She laughs.”

In the next instant they were crowding around their cooing and giggle-burbling baby, spending the next ten minutes trying to repeat the noise as her little legs kicked in glee.


	2. Three - Four Months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again you stunning individuals!  
> Thank you all so much for the response to last chapter it really warmed my cold little heart and it's so nice to be back!  
> How have we all been in the meantime? Hope you're all keeping well. I'm currently having a lot of work done to my poor little house, and the place is crawling with tradesmen during the week... I pretend to be working from home whilst hiding and writing stories.  
> By the way I am aiming for weekly updates for this story, so far we seem to be doing well with Tuesdays so I'll try and stick to that.
> 
> Also, would it be me if I didn't mildly upset Q at any given moment? I don't think so! And thus:  
>  **WARNING:** Panic attacks / mental distress.

In the middle of the night the quiet of one suburban street began to be disturbed by the distant wailing of a police siren, it’s lights beaming invasively through windows.

Like a well oiled machine two men were instantly disturbed by the far-off noise and awoke with the speed of well trained criminals at the stimulus. Without a need for words both men darted out of their shared bed and towards the partition in the room that contained their sleeping baby. James lunged to swiftly pull the sliding doors shut silently on smooth runners as Q grabbed a piece of black painted foam and wedged it into the small window in the room.

For long moments they stood there, holding their breaths and watching the crib with wide eyes.

Innocently within the cot Alice scrunched up her face as the police car wailed by –somewhat muted by her parents’ efforts- and clenched little fists with a small mumbled noise before falling back asleep.

The two men in the room sagged with deep breaths and slowly retreated on tiptoes back to their bed.

“I’m starting to despise my own sector of employment.” James muttered mutinously the next morning, stirring some scrambled eggs. Q, busy walking and bouncing Alice as she fussed in his arms could only agree with a frazzled and exhausted nod.

“I’m not sure whether I hate the criminals or the police more to be honest. But god the _firemen_!” James groaned loudly and arduously, even dropping his spatula to scrub at his hair in frustration. “No one needs to be saved from a fire that badly.”

“Fires aren’t even that dangerous.” The alpha agreed.

“Having said that, now we’ll probably end up having a fire and regretting this conversation.” Q added morosely.

“Alice could probably blow a fire away with her screaming.”

“Or drown it out with a flood of her tears.”

The sarcastic exchange was halted for all three Bonds’ breakfasts, and the mood brightened up over the morning as Alice settled.

She was going through a sensitive stage where the slightest nightly irregularity or disturbance had her up for hours in inconsolable fits of hysteria. The first time it had happened Q had panicked and they’d taken her to the doctor. Soon, they’d learned that the only thing to worry about was waking up in time to lessen any noise or flashing lights. And keep strictly to Alice’s nightly routine; she would not be swayed into anything other than a few minutes allowance when it came to the schedule of change and wash if needed, feed, final night cuddles and settle down with a story.

Obviously, they’d either trained her too rigidly or they’d spawned a dictator.

The preference as to which largely depended on how much sleep James and Q had got the night before.

As it was, she’d been struggling through this stage for the past three weeks and the mates had little choice but to endure it.

Q didn’t know how James managed to function at work on so little sleep, especially given the rigorous duties he was having to take on at the moment.

James didn’t know how Q didn’t go stir crazy alone in the house all day.

Overall, Alice was still so obviously dependent on them the two hadn’t spent a joint day without her once. Q had spent every day with her since birth and was hugely unwilling both to leave her and needed a few days to recuperate or prepare if he left the house with his pup.

They were struggling in different ways; that much was obvious to James. He needed that time away to collect his thoughts, be an agent to the crown, have varied, adult conversations that didn’t either involve or be interrupted by a baby at any given moment. He loved his pup, he did, and his mate. Beyond all sane reason he loved them and enjoyed their company. But it was a huge change in lifestyle, and he enjoyed both work and being at home all the more for having the other.

Q found it hard to cope in a different way. He’d always done everything in absolutes and as a result he was absolute in devoting all of himself to their pup. To be fair, James knew some of Q’s reluctance to go out, to leave Alice or even to vary his schedule was bourn out of the lack of opportunity to work.

The omega would spend two hours a day on work relating to MI6. Trouble shooting mostly, some fine touches on code that Bond ferried to him on secure laptops and memory sticks. M either called weekly or caught up with Q when the omega went to visit the man’s mate, though Bond thought that Q was probably placating the man with some half-truths every now and then.

Bond planned to make a call to M’s mate himself, as he seemed one of the few things Q was willing to leave the house for. James was somewhat hoping he could persuade Daniel to encourage Q out on a regular basis for some varied activities.

As that was all Q did, and James was sure the omega had fallen into a routine; bereft of his working life dictating long schedules, and felt too secure and comfortable in the house to trust leaving it.

Whilst he didn’t want to put Q into distress he was becoming concerned of how healthy it was, thus, he was turning to Villiers. After work this week if he could. The other omega had handled three children after all, and James was sure Q would be better for getting out a bit more and getting some confidence back. Not to mention, on a selfish level, James didn’t want to be the one to push Q too far and cause any sort of stress or argument, or pressure. It was all very well him deciding Q would benefit from varying his activities, but the alpha was reasonable enough to know that he didn’t fully understand what this was like for Q.

He knew that Q was still nesting a lot, and indeed the whole house now seemed to have become a large pseudo nest of safety for both omega and pup. Q was protecting and caring for his pup in the surest way he could, if Villiers up and told Bond to just leave his mate to it, then he’d listen. For all he knew, this was as much a phase to go through as Alice’s sensitive stage.

Either way, he’d decided that Daniel was probably the best one to convince Q of what might be best, given that the man had a wealth of experience to stand on.

That small part of James was still a little jealous of how close the omegas were, absurdly, he knew. But more than that he was grateful of having Daniel around for their ongoing help, especially given neither of them had parental figures to guide them, and Q’s family were not to be trusted on baby advice.

Mycroft had brought up the top boarding schools in the country already and their long waiting lists. James had nearly punched him, Q had gathered up Alice in a not-so-mild panic at the very idea of separating from her. He had meant well, and been incredibly apologetic post the fact, but also clearly couldn’t understand their vitriolic reaction.

Still, having so many people around that cared for Q and Alice was immensely helpful now that James was back on full time work for MI6 and under a fair bit of pressure.

Bond had given his newest set of recruits a reviewing week given that he’d rather not waste time on deadweight if they failed. Two had already failed, and that had involved its own nightmare of silencing them with sworn and signed statements and not too gentle threats to not reveal the techniques or places any of their training had involved.

Now, along with going through mission reports, aiding logistics and planning, maintaining current agents’ training and helping M with own-turf espionage at a frighteningly high governmental level –something he thought Mycroft might have advised M to put him onto- he had more than enough on his own plate to contend with.

Altogether, he was relieved to get back in the evening early enough to help Q with Alice and readying her for bed. Looked forwards to weekends and the scant stretches of time at night where he could indulge in holding their pup if he hadn’t had much time during the week. Regretted those nights he got back so late that Q was knackered and either hadn’t gone for his evening walk from a lack of security or had gone alone after spending the whole day that way.

He might not be able to be home as much as he’d like, but he could at least do his best to make that easier for his Q and his pup.

-00Q00-

Q got back from his supposedly every-day stroll with Alice earlier than usual. He was tired, and James was going to be at work late and there had been nothing short of thirty screaming children in the park. He’d had enough of his own child screaming.

Despite having given birth months ago, his hips also still ached fiercely on some days and made his legs shake. Today was one of them. All he wanted to do was go home, curl up in the safety of their house and feed his growing hungry pup.

Alice was big now, well, comparatively speaking, and could hold her own head up quite well along with make her own gorgeous little noises of communication.

That and, she stood. At least, when Q had changed her this morning and held her, smiling at the usually adorable inevitable fold of her legs, so that her feet touched the counter, those tiny little baby toes had held their position. He had been ecstatic, and motivated like nothing else throughout the day… until he got an e-mail from work.

There was a new prototype electrical interference bug R was attempting to run that was going to be tested this week. Q hadn’t been briefed about it or the schematics, which was reasonable since R was acting Quartermaster in his absence, but something about the programming seemed off to him and he couldn’t wrap his head around why.

It was infuriating, and embarrassing, and left him tense and wanting nothing to do with work and the fact that he might be loosing his abilities with the time away. So instead he went to the park with his daughter, who was often so beautifully soothed by him that the omega felt more confident in himself. But the park had been loud and busy and instead Q found himself not liking the distance of his pup in the pram and looking around nervously. So he went home.

He’d been doing this a lot recently, and James knew, but neither of them had said anything about it yet.

Coming home though was just a relief. He knew where everything was, it was locked and safe, he could scent happy pheromones on the air and had privacy.

Home was just him and his mate and his pup.

Home was heaven.

“We don’t need a park, do we? No, we don’t, that’s why Mummy brought a house with a _garden_.” Q informed Alice as he scooped her out of her pram inside the front door. The little pup had her face scrunched in dislike for her outdoor clothes and was kicking her feet as if to rid herself of the slowly slipping off socks she wore.

“Lets get these off then.” Q sighed, pulling the small slips of fabric off and then kissing his daughter’s toes with a grin. She giggled beautifully and Q felt vindicated in his decision to come home.

Home was much more fun too, he didn’t have to keep up any masks, all he had to do was love his little girl, and that was easy in abundance.

“Garden it is!” Q announced, and fiddled with his phone for a moment to play some soothing music before heading outside, grabbing a blanket on the way.

Their garden may be slightly under-loved, but that just meant that the overhanging leaves provided Q with privacy and protection. Determined to at least play at being natural and adventurous Q lay the blanket down in the evening sun and unbuttoned his shirt so that Alice could suckle. She wouldn’t settle at first, winging and wriggling until Q sighed and gave in, divesting her of all clothes save for nappy and t-shirt. Only then were the food conditions suitable, clearly, and Alice tucked in with gusto.

He stroked and kissed his pup’s head, admiring the soft, thicker growth of hair that she was developing and just enjoying the closeness. After some time Alice decided to reach out and push at his chest whilst suckling, and Q winced as the movement caused her to slide into a painful position. Carefully he slid a finger into her mouth until she let go with an unhappy gurgling cry.

“Ssh I know, just don’t hurt Mummy okay? It’s very painful.” Q soothed, bringing Alice close again until her lip brushed his nipple and she gaped to take in a bigger amount of flesh. “There we go that wasn’t the end of the world now was it?” He laughed softly. Alice continued to mash her hand against his other pectoral greedily, small hand squeezing the nub they found until he winced and had to remove her fingers.

Somedays, she could be a restless feeder. James would chuckle when he saw her fussing and accuse their baby of not knowing what was good for her, teasingly threatening her with bottled formula milk instead.

Q both despised and adored the formula. The hours in which he didn’t need to feed Alice himself were a godsend for both his chest and energy. At the same time, he resented not being able to supply their baby with all her nourishment. Most days he found that he was more thankful of the formula than resentful of it though.

Alice pulled off on her own after her usual stretch of time and smacked her lips contentedly. Q moved to burp her automatically for a minute before pulling her back so that he could nuzzle her face. He was rewarded with Alice copying his grin and smiling gummily up at him with a lop-sided smirk like her fathers.

“You’re such a charmer.” He grinned, and finally shifted cross-legged until he could rest her on her feet on the grass. Her consternated expression at the ticklish blades left Q bursting out in laughter.

“What’s going on here?” Q looked up beaming at the sight of James’ amused grin, feeling a little bit lighter and more settled for having his family home.

“Our Dictator doesn’t like grass.” James shucked his own shoes and socks to sit beside them barefoot and grinned uninhibitedly as Alice frowned and kicked with a grumpy wail at the grass when she was set down there. Q doubled over laughing and James reached to take and save their pup, scooping her up and swinging her around in a wide arc that left her giggling and curling when she was again brought close for a nuzzle.

Q watched them, elbows resting on his knees and fingers trailing laxly through the grass, smiling at the sight. James caught his gaze and came back to kneel beside him.

“Come here,” Q met James for a slow kiss and readily tipped his head back when the alpha nuzzled under his chin like he had their babe’s. Slowly he let the sensation wash over him of their three scents mingling and James’ easy, strong grip on their pup, the relaxation he felt when the alpha nuzzled him like this easing any remaining pressure.

He found himself recalling how stressed he had always been during work. Alive and bright and feeling electric, yes, but with knotted shoulders and headaches and stiff with the strain sometimes.

Parenthood and raising a young pup had its own stressors, that was true… but Q was starting to wonder whether he wanted to go back to work at all.

Given that he felt enough stress just from raising Alice, did he really want to start bringing that home again? Sure, there were months left before he’d have to work full time: not before November this year, a whole seven months away. But when that time came who was going to take care of Alice during the day? Q couldn’t and hadn’t left her alone in the company of anyone save James since they’d come back from the hospital.

Certainly right now, he couldn’t imagine ever being able to leave the house without her.

-00Q00-

To say that Villiers had been surprised to see Bond poll up at his door on a Thursday evening was putting it lightly.

His pups were little better, the oldest boy, a certain Mathew, had growled at him.

Still he’d managed to coerce his way through the door, mostly because he had already gotten permission from M to turn up at their house. He hadn’t been sure of his welcome otherwise. The man had been suspicious of it, and Bond had trodden very carefully around the reason why. The last thing he wanted was to cast any doubt into MI6’s mind about Q’s mental health. No matter how understanding M might have been, James could neither predict nor guarantee the man’s reaction.

“He won’t leave the house. He’s less confident, somehow.” Villiers watched him silently over the rim of a teacup whilst in another room the man’s children shrieked with delight in a game they were getting up to. James found his teeth grinding at the omega’s silence. “Should I worry?” He bit out, regretting coming here more by the moment.

“Oh so you are here for advice then, I thought you just wanted to rant.” With a roll of his eyes and impatient huff Bond pushed his chair back and stood.

“This was a waste of time.”

“No, wait.” Villiers stood to halt Bond’s escape, though the alpha could only look at him slightly coldly. There was a brief stale mate across the table. For all Q’s friendship with the man, Bond was not at that level with Villiers. “I can talk to him, but I’m not being your spy Bond.” Even that the man sounded uncomfortable with, put out at the idea of deceiving his friend.

“I’m not asking for me, I’m asking for him.” James stressed the point, if in a tetchy manner. “You’re the only one we really know who’s been through it, if it’s normal then that’s fine.” He struggled with the words for a moment, convinced that Q would never have to try this hard to get Alec to look into James’ own wellbeing.

Cagey omega friendships.

“It’s only been four months, what are you expecting?” Villiers questioned, a little unfairly in Bond’s opinion and the alpha threw his hands out.

“Nothing. Christ never mind.” He snagged his jacket and left ignorant of the man’s impatient call for him to return. He’d wasted valuable time at home with his mate and pup on this fools errand.

The drive home turned him a little sour, more at a loss. Finding Q asleep in another nest alongside their awake pup did little to ease his mind. Alice cooed softly at him and he brushed over the pup’s head with a light kiss in passing, silently creeping through the room until he came to Q’s laptop, a previously treasured possession, finding it cold and with a book placed on top of it that James remembered being there the day before, unmoved.

The sight unnerved him. He didn’t wan’t Q to be loosing who he was.

Slowly, he changed from work and the lingering smell of business, and settled on the sofa above Q’s blanket mound, gently rousing the man with a shake to his shoulder.

“Love?” Q grumbled beneath him, but blinked his eyes open anyway, one hand creeping out to cover over his pup. “Have you gone for a walk today?”

Q glanced around sleepily as if the answer might present itself.

“You know it’s doctor’s orders.” James cajoled gently, not wanting to upset the man unnecessarily.

“My hips ache.” Q grumbled, sitting up in an avalanche of bedding and hair a wild thing, looking only semi-awarely up at his mate. “I know best.” He insisted with such a sleepy petulance that it brought a laugh unbidden from James.

“That you do, Q.” He allowed gently.

James tried to keep an eye on him over the weekend, but between Alice and the fact that Q was catching up on sleep with James around to take care of her, nothing resolved itself neatly in the alpha’s mind.

-00Q00-

Monday morning found Bond in M’s office, confronting Mallory with a determined stare over the top of five document folders, each emblazoned with the word ‘Fail’.

“I can’t believe it’s come to this.”

“The’ll be more of them M. I’ve already sent out word for nominations to be filtered in before the month’s end.” M tapped his fingers and nodded, there was little they could do except wait. Some agents that failed the Double Oh program could still go on to be useful in other departments after all, but it didn’t pay to allow the most complex missions to the incompetent.

“Very well. In the meantime-“

“About that.” Bond interrupted with, barely shifting his stance yet drawing Mallory’s attention from a waiting tablet back to him. “I need to adjust my hours.”

“Oh?” M asked archly.

“Half days on Thursday and Friday along with retaining weekends off should be sufficient.” He’d had the weekend to think about this long and hard, after all. “Until the new recruits are in building, which won’t be until August in all reality, I won’t be needed in as much of a hands on capacity.” M slowly fixed him with a look.

“Is this about your pup?” James didn’t move an inch. “Is this about Q?” This next question was more sharp, but James remained still. He wouldn’t do Q the disservice of backstabbing him to their boss. The complete end of Q’s maternity leave was still months away, around November perhaps, but there was no telling how quickly MI6 could move to dismiss him if they decided to. Q had been out of the office for five months now, and was only just doing some work for them. Out of sight, out of mind in MI6.

James wouldn’t be responsible for jeopardising Q’s career any more than he already had.

Across from him M sighed and rolled his eyes, leaning back from the desk.

“For God’s sake Bond I’m not going to have him fired if he’s struggling when he’s got a four month old pup. Do you think he could come in for a conversation? I could help assuage his fears or, if nothing else, decide he really has enough on his plate without doing bits from his branch.” James gradually deflated at M’s words, especially ‘his branch’, to suggest there was never a question of that fact.

“I don’t know how he manages to do any of the work I’ve brought back with the pup.” James confessed a little hopelessly. His weekend looking after Alice hadn’t left James any free time.

“So he’s not changed then.” M offered with an amused lilt to his voice. James raised his brows in agreement.

“The time off would help give him the time for it, the energy.”

“Bond.” M cut in. “If the work is too much, he shouldn’t be doing it at all.” M pointed out. “Have him come in to talk to me.” M said it like that was a final decision, and James’ fists tightened a bit.

“M, he can’t leave the pup. He hasn’t left her.” James corrected himself, and M’s face took on one of those almost comically amused/horrified looks.

“Not once?”

“He barely leaves the house!” James insisted, throwing his arm around the room in a rare show of frustration. “I need the time at home to help get him comfortable enough to take a breather. Leave her in someone else’s care, if I don’t start now then what if he never will?” James regretted the words as he said them, even implying that Q might not come back to MI6-

“Double Oh Seven.” M cut in calmly, voice level. “Go home and have this conversation with your mate. Now. Have Q come in to see me as soon as it is safe for him to do so, without your pup. You’ll be debriefing me every Monday from now about the situation.” M turned to stab out a note on his tablet as James’ breathing slowly calmed. “You will have your Thursday and Friday half shifts, though depending on the state of things we may have to vary which half of the day is spent here.” James nodded, relieved, absurdly so.

“Agent,” M drew his attention once more. “Get him back here to us in due time, understand?” With a nod and murmur of thanks Bond turned to leave, legs feeling almost deliciously numb with the removal of stress from his core.

He should possibly have given Mallory more credit from the start, although James would still keep an eye and ear open for any tone of dissent.

Maybe he should have just never bothered with going to Villiers at all.

-00Q00-

The sound of the door being unlocked startled Q a bit out of one of Alice’s feeds, the pup breaking off with a grumpy slap of fist and Q hushing her and encouraging her to latch on again while he stood.

“Q?”

“James?” Q questioned, glancing awkwardly at his watch. The man hadn’t been gone for more than two hours. “What’s happening?” He came out to greet the man, tucking Alice in her leaf patterned onesie closer to him. She of course continued drinking like nothing was amiss.

“No, nothing’s wrong.” James assured with a smile, leaning in to capture him a kiss. Q returned it in a bemused fashion.

“Then, why are you here?” As James raised an amused brow Q held up a hand and shook his head. “Not that I’m not thrilled to see you of course.” He rubbed the alpha’s arm and gestured them out of the hall.

“Truth be told, Mallory kicked me out.” The words shocked Q’s limbs into a dumbfounded pause, turning to frown at his mate.

“What?”

“Here sit down.”

“Well that’s not worrying at all.”

James huffed a bit of a chuckle as he sat Q down and moved to the kitchen. “Tea?”

“Always.” Q replied on automatic. By the time James had finished in the kitchen, Alice had finished with her second breakfast and was turning her head sleepily into his chest. Q let her snuggle and held her close as James returned. The alpha put down tea mugs and held out his hands for their pup.

“Let me put her down.”

“No.” Q protested with a frown, curling away from the suggestion and drawing his legs onto the couch to shield their pup from hands that were threatening to rob him of her. James’ eyes turned strained at his reaction.

“Q, I-“

“James. You have about one minute to explain this strangeness and I suggest you take it. Are you alright?” Because whilst he wouldn’t be separated from his pup right now, he was increasingly concerned about James. This seemed to settle the alpha a little, and he sat, finally, on the other L of the sofa, near enough to touch, though he didn’t right now.

“M sent me home, because I requested more time back here with you, he’s granted them, by the way. Half days Thursday and Friday.”

The news half elated him, but nonetheless Q narrowed his brows.

“Why?” James pulled a face and met Q’s eyes.

“I’m worried about you.”

“Ah.” At the words, the knowledge that they were finally talking about this no matter how much he didn’t really want to, Q uncurled. Sensing the change James’ hand instantly shot to rest on their pup, recovering from the temporary deprivation.

“You don’t leave the house enough Q, and you haven’t been having people over to help-“

“It’s not like our friends aren’t busy.” Q pointed out. “They have lives of their own.”

“Yes, I know, but you haven’t had any time away-“

“I don’t want it.” Q replied stiffly, looking away from James to Alice and ducking to sniff her gently, though he knew exactly what she smelt like.

“I know,” James gentled, a little strained sounding, and his hand switched down to Q’s knee. “No one’s saying you have to.”

“Sounds like you are.” Q replied with more than a little warning in his tone, more than he would ever use with James typically outside of a work situation. He met the man’s eyes with it, let it be known that he would not be separated from his pup.

“I’m only saying, that it’s better for us to start, and only start,” He insisted when Q let out a very quiet half growl. “To desensitise to the likelihood of it now, rather than when we have to do it completely in November.” He let that sit for a moment, and Q didn’t look away from the man’s eyes, that bead of doubt and anxiety he’d felt the last few weeks growing in his chest. “I’m not even suggesting you be in a different room to her with anyone other than me around right now.” James tried to encourage, gently, using what Q had to admit was a very winning smile and squeezing his knee. “But as adoring and grateful as I am to your devotion to our daughter, I don’t want you to lose you either.”

Q’s face formed a complicated squiggle for a moment of twisted reflection and he looked away from James at their pup. He knew what was going unsaid, everything from their jobs to Q’s confidence.

“I just…” Q trailed off, voice a little low, trying to vocalise what he really didn’t know that he could. “Don’t feel like the priorities are the same any more.” Q murmured, trying to find the blandest and most impersonal way of saying it all.

“I know you don’t. I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem… But maybe I can show you how I don’t think they have to be all that different?”

“That doesn’t make-“

“Q, if nothing else, you’re tired and I’ll be home more until August. That’s a good thing I hope?”

“Of course it is.” Q assured, hand going out to James’ own knee, though his chest still felt a little tight.

“Can I have my pup now-“

With a snarl of ‘No!’ Q spun off the sofa and distanced himself to the other side of the room, clutching Alice tight and holding up a hand to halt James’ slightly stunned and offended approach.

“I know I’m being ridiculous but also if you take her from me right now _I will bite you_ and that is as polite as I can be about this.” Q hurried the words out and begged James with his eyes to listen. “Everything, everything feels like a threat right now, other than you, but you removing her in any way after that conversation is and it’s not rational and its not fair but-“

“Q,” James halted him with a deep, painful breath. “I’d never-“

“I know, James I know.” Q managed to heave out miserably. “Just don’t ever take her from me, even in fun, I mean it.” He took a deep breath and looked back at James more solidly. “It’s more than I can bare, with any grace. Please.” Half of Q, the deep, primally feral emotions that had been threatened even in jest with the removal of a pup, made it hard for him to even say the words, to ask.

“I don’t mean any harm.” James tried, voice a little stiff. “I’m not going to run out the door with her.” He extrapolated, gesturing.

Torn, between instinct and love, Q curled over Alice more and felt his eyes burn.

“Please James, I’m sorry, but I can’t help but mean it.” His tearful tone seemed to soothe James at least by a few degrees, soften him, though they remained in a somewhat tense stale mate for a few strenuous moments.

“Christ Q if this is your reaction to me I’d hate to see what happened if it was someone else.”

“I don’t think we should joke about that right now.” Q managed quickly, not taking his eyes off James. Every move the man made that wasn’t completely acquiescing to Q’s neuroses was just serving to make him more tense. James, understandably, seemed to be having trouble getting around the restricted access to his pup too though.

“Do we need help right now?” The alpha managed, somewhat tensely, his own eyes flicking between Q and Alice in a mix of hard emotions.

“Please don’t look at me like that I’m trying not to bolt as it is.” His rough words seemed to get through to James, mercifully, the alpha pausing to take in his mate’s tense body and tearing eyes.

“I want you close.” James half demanded in frustration. “I want our pup.” The words were a little growled out in the alpha’s difficulty processing the situation, Q wasn’t doing much better, but he couldn’t budge. “I’m not going to take her from you.” But now it felt like a stand off and Q didn’t trust that.

“Sit down.” Somewhat to his surprise, James did. “Don’t look at me.” That one seemed harder for James to follow, but he fixed his vision ahead with the knowledge of a man who didn’t need his eyes to know where people were in a room.

“I’m going to sit on the sofa and I really can’t express how much you need to not move.” Q managed, voice shivering along with his body. Alice, he noted, was awake, watching him curiously if still in a dozy fashion. James’ jaw clenched but he sat stiff as a board as Q crept over and descended to the sofa, shaking.

Proximity to his mate had never been a problem for Q, only in the worst of James’ nightmares back before he’d really known how to deal with them. Still didn’t, sometimes, luckily James had become used to his presence.

James seemed to relax gradually, as Q managed to shift himself closer to the man. However, whilst James calmed, Q only became more disturbed. Even if it was James, he had images of hands shooting out to rip Alice from him and, it would be fine, it was James, if James was holding Alice it’s not like that had ever, should ever be a problem.

But, Q knew with every fibre of his being that if an alpha already had hold of his pup, there wasn’t much that Q could do that was safe to get her back forcefully.

He forced his brain to think ‘its just James it’s just James, he’d never separate us.’ But even the thought of having her removed against his will from his arms was like someone threatening to cut off a limb.

He hadn’t thought about it for months, but he could feel the threat of being chained up in that warehouse when Alice was still inside him and achingly easy to hurt and being told awful things about having her beaten out of him.

“Q.” James’ tone was different now, urgent, concerned. “Q,” The call and James’ body turning to him very carefully brought him a little bit back into his body, where his cheeks were soaked and he couldn’t catch breath, body shaking uncontrollably around the gentle hold on his pup.

Alice was sobbing a bit at the scents in the air but Q could hardly smell at all, could barely control his body in some grayscale tunnel vision.

“I need you to calm down, what can I do?” James’ calm tone was almost beyond helping him, snared between his protective fit for his pup and an all consuming fear. He cracked his jaw open to speak but couldn’t catch the breath to do so.

“No one is taking her, not me, not anyone. I swear I won’t take her.” James began trying, at first a little desperately, then with a calmer tone. “I’d never take her from you, I’d never let anyone. I want to hold you both, can I?”

Q didn’t object and James curled oh so slowly around him, warmth seeping through the cold terror that had grasped him along with the ongoing litany of the man’s words. One hand cupped his head and the other stroked his tense neck, bleeding heat through his skin.

“I love you, I love how safe you’re keeping her, you’re safe here with me, I’d never take her.” A kiss pressed to his hair, peppered over him and the lock seemed to click into place.

Q deflated and limpened with a shuddering whine, nearly collapsing with the relief of it being stolen from his muscles and bones.

“Okay, okay.” James murmured. Q could barely breathe or get his hands to continue supporting their daughter.

“Hold her, Hold her.” He urged quickly, pressing her into James’ arms so that he could stumble a pace away, trying to both stand and breathe at the same time. One hand pressed over his mouth as if that might stop him from throwing up, the other clenched into James’ shoulder.

To his credit the alpha didn’t move other than to try and steady Q with his free hand, holding his shaking thigh.

“I think you should sit down.” James offered, a little too-calmly. Q knew the tone. Didn’t particularly like that he’d earned the very careful suggestion.

“I,” Talking clearly wasn’t a good idea as Q both swayed and gagged.

“Alright.” James stood and pressed their chests together till Alice was between them. “Do you need to hold her?”

“Can’t hold her.” Q managed, trembling in a cold sweat and exhaustion tugging every limb. His eyes closed and next thing he knew both he and James were on the sofa, the alpha’s arms wrapped around both him and their pup, Q leaning back on him, Alice on his own chest and looking a little fretful in her sleep.

“Q?” James asked gently, and he managed a noise of assent. “I think you won that one.”

Laughter ripped from him in a painful way, feeling James’ smile as the man pressed lips to Q’s neck.

“I didn-“

“It’s alright, I understand. I understand Q.” Q wondered how James possibly could, but just went with it in a limp relief. “Thank you for handing her to me.” He added, Q sobbed a little, messily, he stroked over Alice’s back and James’ hands on her as his head pounded.

“I’m s-“

“You don’t have to be sorry. Christ I’ve been warned enough times by everyone in our pack about omega instincts."

“They weren’t at you, not really.” Q managed, begged a bit.

“I know Q.” James gave him another kiss. “You’d never have given her to me if they were.”

Q didn’t have anything to say to that, exhausted from the panic attack as he was.

“I’m sorry I pushed you, I didn’t know what I was doing until it was too late.” James added, soothed, and the remaining tension slipped eerily from Q’s limbs till he was beyond exhaustion.

“Can I clean you up?”

“Alice-“

“She can sit with us in her nest bed. She’s a very proficient nursemaid.” With a faint laugh Q agreed.

James fixed Alice to Q’s chest with the sling, and carried them both up the stairs. By this point most rooms in their house had at least one nest bed for Alice to be safely tucked into, and James gave their pup one of her crinkle filled and multi-textured blanket toys to hold. This seemed to appease her. Q was kept in eyesight of Alice at all times and that alone helped him calm further.

-00Q00-

James accepted the adjustment to his role with good grace. He was only sorry that his own desire to be with his pup had meant that he had cottoned on inexcusably late to the state of mind Q was getting into. Now, he reorganised mentally what needed to be the new norm. The mother and pup needed to be together, without exception, until Q was ready.

He kept Alice, so glad for her angelically easy to calm nature when it wasn’t the middle of the night, in Q’s line of sight as he set a bath running and returned to help Q where he was trying to exhaustedly get out of his sweat covered clothes. Q was eased into the tub and James gently ran a cloth over his limpining limbs. The omega appeared a bit beyond functioning and James didn’t try to talk, letting Q soak silently and hopefully piece himself back together. After a while, Q reached out and spent the rest of the bath holding his hand. Whilst the gesture didn’t make James’ job easier, he appreciated the gentle skate of intelligent fingers over his skin more than words could describe.

It was only when the family were back downstairs and Q was snuggled on the sofa, firmly in James’ arms, their pup having yet another sleep after yet another poo, that he talked more seriously.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Q was silent for a while.

“I wouldn’t even know what to say.” He sighed out.

“Do you want to get any professional help?” He asked gently. Q shook his head.

“I’m fine mostly, I just overreacted.”

“You could have been worse.” James offered, kissing Q’s hair.

“I just… Don’t feel very much like a Quartermaster right now.” The admission seemed to cost Q, and James just held him closer.

“You shouldn’t have to be the Quartermaster right now, this time is for our pup.”

“But… you’re not wrong.” Q sighed out, a little defeated in the admission. “I’m loosing myself a bit to it. Maybe I shouldn’t have to work right now, but I do, and I certainly will have to in due time. I’ll only be content with this type of mental stimulation for so long.”

James knew that much, devoted though they both were, Q would tear his hair out if he didn’t have his work.

“So, you’re right, that we’re better off gentling our way into that situation gradually.”

“We’ll be very gentle.” James assured, he knew enough about his mate that whilst Q could now see the logic, he didn’t like it with his priorities and hormones shifted as much as they were. “I don’t want to see that happen to you again.”

“Okay.” Q whispered, just holding onto James and seeping in the comfort.

James held him till the omega fell into another sleep, not taking his own keen eyes off their pup whilst his mate recovered.


	3. Five - Six Months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back!  
> Thank you so much to those who take the time to comment especially and kudos, it might seem like a small thing, but it makes a huge difference to me to know people are liking what I write, you're brilliant.  
> Anyway, there's a lot of bits I really enjoyed writing in this chapter, so on with the show!

Following the latest revelation between the pair of them, Q helped James form a new approach to the next couple of months.

James handled the logistics, and Q refined the plans ever so slightly in ways that made him feel more comfortable. They decided on a simple system, Monday-Wednesday was for Q to just be with his pup, trying to leave the house if he liked, but generally just giving him time to just be and bond with their ever growing daughter. Thursday whilst James was at home on his first half day of the week, Q would dedicate his time to doing whatever small work-related task he may or may not have. Friday and Saturday, they aimed to either have a visitor or go and visit someone else. Q hadn’t done so since the first few weeks after Alice was born before James had had to go back to work and he’d closeted himself away. Sundays would be just for them.

The routine of it pleased Q. Alice was a little put off. She was a real stickler for routine and initially seemed affronted that James was around more during the day and she didn’t have as much access to her mother. When the wailing was getting on both James’ nerves and Q’s their first Thursday, Q had left his seat at the table, grabbed the hallway mirror off the wall and plonked it down in front of where Alice lay. The baby was entranced with the baby opposite her even whilst James looked at him oddly.

“Trust me it works.” Q explained in a slightly harried fashion, and tried to concentrate on the minor project updates he was given whilst still feeling unable to leave the room. James had gotten over his shock quickly in order to play ‘make face’ in the mirror with an astonished looking Alice.

Given that Q usually used the mirror for the moments when he just needed to not interact for a moment, Alice’s enjoyment was almost too tempting a distraction from his ‘work’ session.

On Friday, they were having a visitor for the first time in long weeks.

Q would honestly have picked Alec along with James but the man was out of the country. He hadn’t been able to face Sherlock’s energy or the likelihood that Mycroft might become unknowingly a risk by trying to hold Alice in that proprietary way that alphas so often did, so their first visitor was not who Q would have thought.

“Tanner, come in.” James welcomed the man at the door, who still seemed a bit bemused at the invite, though curious. Although Tanner was an alpha, he was a lower one than James. He also wasn’t baby mad.

“Bond, thanks for having me, Q! Hello.” Q came around the corner with a fond greeting for his old somewhat partner-in-crime. “That must be her.” Tanner nodded awkwardly at the baby and, with the man’s clear mingled intrigue but also desire to stay away, combined with James in between where Q stood with Alice, the omega chuckled.

“Don’t worry, she doesn’t bite yet. Come in.” Tanner had tea with them, didn’t ask to hold Alice, but did gently sniff her neck at one point. Alice stared at him like he was an alien the whole time, and Tanner stared back the same way. Mostly they chatted shop and Tanner guzzled tea and chuckled about Eve’s grump at not being invited first. He dutifully took a photo of the family Bond ‘as ordered’ to send her, and was gone by five in the afternoon.

“That went smoothly.” The alpha commented with satisfaction. Q laughed a little.

“Watch what you say, tomorrow it’s Eve, you’ll have to be on hand in case, well.” Q gestured to himself rather hopelessly. It seemed that life was a world away from when Eve had come over to their house in the first few weeks and deftly handled Alice whilst James slept. Q was pretty sure he shouldn’t have let things drop so much, but didn’t think he’d have had the energy to have people over whilst Alice was having growth spurts and hadn’t gotten on somewhat of a routine yet.

-00Q00-

“She’s such a beauty, aren’t you my sweet.” Eve cooed at Alice whilst James held her and Q hovered a little antisly. James had accepted being given Alice by his slightly fretful mate with the knowledge that Q thought James was more likely to be able to prevent a fellow alpha taking her. Q, it seemed, had made himself the ‘attack dog’ in this scenario, and growled if Eve reached for the pup to stroke her cheek.

“That’s adorable Q, really.” Eve cooed at him just as she had at Alice, and reached to pinch Q’s cheeks instead. Gradually the woman’s warm and playful presence settled into the house and Q could relax a bit, so long as he regularly stole Alice back from James or her play mat to scent mark her. Eve allowed his neuroses with good grace and considering that both mates remained a little tense. She played with Alice with her various chewable and bat-able toys and took photos, managing to keep hands off.

“I don’t know how you don’t bundle him into bed and shag his brains out whilst he’s being so ruffled and cute.” Q had blushed at James’ blush and Eve’s responding cackle. Then there was the fact that Eve’s words alone had sparked off an impressive erection on James even as he ushered the other woman out of their house in a bluster.

Before they’d had any time to talk about it, Alice had decided to make a truly impressive nappy mishap and by the time Q had gotten back from dealing with it James had, from the smell of it, had a quick and desperate wank in the downstairs bathroom. Q was a little relieved, since he still felt barely horny in any way and certainly couldn’t fathom sex whilst Alice was around.

-00Q00-

Tanner and Eve had been a test run, James knew that. The two were easy to control and generally rational.

“I just don’t think Sherlock will actually listen to me.” Q explained, spreading his hands along with the thought. John Watson sat opposite his mate, Alice was lying on a blanket at Q’s feet, on her stomach and using her newly developed arm strength to prop herself up and reach for toys.

James stood at the door, where Sherlock was beating on it angrily, the alpha having only let in John when the two turned up unannounced on Tuesday evening. Because of course, they wouldn’t wait to be factored in.

“Let me in! I’ll call the police!”

“It’s my house.” James called back idly, still watching Q and John’s conversation.

“No, no I’m sure he will if it’s serious like this.” John offered, hopeful as ever. “This is important he knows that.” Q just scrunched his face in a wince for John’s optimism.

“I don’t share your faith.” He offered, fairly rationally.

“Come on now that’s being unfair, it was his suggestion to come here today, we came all this way just to see you all.” John pleaded. James turned to the front door with a frown, Sherlock had gone suspiciously silent.

“If I have to break in to my own brother’s-“

“Sherlock! Christ you unhelpful-“

James was bolting into the living room before Watson had finished and Sherlock was just straightening from coming in through the window.

“Ah, James, there you are.”

“Sherlock.” He greeted, a little tensely. Q had risen to stand over Alice and held a hand up to halt Sherlock when he took a step closer. James remembered the gesture from a few days ago.

“No go zone.” Q emphasised strictly, gesturing the blanket and child beneath his feet.

“For heaven’s sake-“

“No!” Q shouted as Sherlock took another exasperated step closer. The beta stopped, impatient, as Q held his ground. “I’m very, very on edge right now and I will bite you.”

“I know how to handle a baby. I handled you all the time!” Sherlock flailed the words out stroppily.

“Yeah, not helping here I imagine Sherlock.”

“Oh calm down John I won’t upset the apple cart.”

“Best not to.” James encouraged in the background, grin a little forced. The sofa was between him and both betas and Q, Alice was in a vulnerable position.

“So over dramatic.” Sherlock flopped down next to John on the sofa, pouting, and Q slightly adjusted his stance, though he gathered Alice off the ground in a defensive curl anyway.

“Thank you.” Q nodded the words at Sherlock, who puffed an unimpressed breath but had a smile tugging the corner of his lips.

The tension abated, and John was all questions as Sherlock cut in and stared and then impatiently directed the conversation onto their latest cases instead.

James placed a dinner order and tried to rally his tired body and mind for an evening of entertaining. Q seemed little better off fatigue-wise, but did relax enough to let Alice go back to playing before dinner.

The four ate, and Q busied himself after with Alice’s nightly routine whilst James talked to the other two. Sherlock kept glancing impatiently at the ceiling, and the instant Q came down pounced on him with a quick hug and then long fingers poking and prodding at him. Q slumped amenably into the contact and stubbornly curled Sherlock closer.

“Let me go.”

“No.” Q squeezed his brother harder and the man eventually pushed him off and forced Q back into a seat.

“Honestly, what did you think of me, that I was going to steal her.”

“Don’t joke.” Q grimaced, taking a long drink of water.

“You two are doing alright aren’t you?” John asked, concern dripping from his voice and fixing them both with a gaze.

“Never mind us, what about you two?” Q brushed off.

“Mmm been on a date yet?” James asked, smirking.

Sherlock responded with ‘Yes’ at the same time John spluttered out ‘No’.

Q and James just shared a look.

“We go on dates all the time John!”

“A case is not a date!” John insisted, Sherlock sat back in a huff with his arms crossed.

“They could be.”

“No, no they really couldn’t.”

“You understand.” Sherlock jumped forwards in his seat again, eyes avidly on Q and James. “Your first date was probably horribly patriotic and violent.” Sherlock seemed entirely enthralled with the idea, Q glanced at James, who ignored the gaze soundly.

“I’ll have you know we went to a spa-“

“We did not!” Q coughed out through some water. “You took me on a bloody hot air balloon, blindfolded.” he prompted, when James looked innocently away.

“I took you to the spa after.”

Opposite them, John was laughing.

“Romantic, really.”

“It was.” James defended.

“Was that before or after I had a panic attack and hit at you?” Q asked pointedly and James coughed and offered a grin.

“I thought that was charming.” Q flicked water at him and Sherlock sat back, gesturing at them.

“See John! Danger and intrigue, perfect for dates.”

“Good God I’m never letting him near you again this is a terrible family.” John’s haunted tone had James laughing and Q cackling a little as Sherlock sat smug and satisfied next to his partner in crime.

-00Q00-

Whatever else Q thought about having to start feeling like a functional member of society again, he was achingly glad to have James at home more often. He hadn’t realised quite how much he’d missed the man.

And missed the fact that now he could work with more confidence at his laptop at the dining table whilst James did anything from play peekaboo to read toddler books to encourage Alice to roll and stretch on a blanket nearby. Q took a fair few pictures and videos of the agent and pup at play. He found it almost impossibly hilarious to see James Bond, 007, pointing at picture of a fruit and saying ‘An apple is green’ with a sense of levity.

Q found he still couldn’t move himself down to his so carefully set up study, even with James looking after Alice. The fact was that the pair of them together were more entertaining than his work, and he now just wanted to be close to both of them.

Still, by the fifth or so time they’d practiced the charade, Q did find he was better able to concentrate on the reports and code sent through to him for review, minimal though his work really was.

It was a relief to at least not feel so hopelessly lost in the sea of it all.

-00Q00-

At five and a half months old, Q found it hard sometimes to remember that their baby had once been unable to even hold her own head up. Now she was capable of rolling, and finally with assistance could sit up, and then hold the position mostly on her own.

Alice blinked around her with that slightly drunk, shell-shocked look that she usually did when at a novel position. Opposite her, poking over Q’s shoulder, was Beth Mallory. The alpha had recently had her birthday, and would proudly announce to anyone in the vicinity that she was now seven and a grown up. Q’s shoulder rocked as the little girl grabbed at him and bounced up and down squealing.

“She’s bald she’s bald! Look Dada!”

“Bethany,” Villiers cautioned gently behind his girl. “Manners.”

“But she is!”

Q chanced an amused glance up at James, coping OK with the situation so long as no one came between him and his girl. James, however, was hovering at the kitchen table and glaring at the petulant form of Mathew Mallory opposite him. Daniel had a hug wrapped around his oldest child, and the nine year old was grumping about not being allowed to touch the pup.

“It’s not fair!”

“Now now, you’ve got to be kind to Maurice alright?”

“I don’t care about Maurice!” Mathew stomped his foot and Q had to hold up a hand to stop James’ instinctive step forwards. James backed down, slightly, and Mathew was far too young and caught up in his own upset world to notice the dangers of a fully grown alpha around him. James, at least, was grown enough to know that he didn’t want two overprotective omegas in the room, and as long as Daniel kept his son in line, James wouldn’t start something.

Q hoped, anyway. He already had Bethany practically on top of him and Stewie had situated himself in the omega’s lap, playing with Alice’s own toys. Their little beta girl reached out to bat the soft ball that Stewie was holding and the omega pup giggled, waggling it for her.

“I want one.” Beth cooed.

“I want that one!” Mathew pointed at Alice with another foot stamp.

I want to go to sleep. Q added on for himself wistfully.

“You can’t have other people, Mathew. If you were polite, Maurice might let you say hi to little Alice.”

“Not fair!” Mathew insisted with a childish growl. Q pitied the poor sod that ever tried to date little Stewie. He also felt a little saddened by the oldest pup falling out of love with him, in a way it had been very sweet whilst the affection lasted. Or at least preferable to having the boy banished to the side of the room because he’d run into the house screaming ‘Mine’.

Mercifully, Daniel had grabbed and restrained his own pup firmly on the other side of the room before either Q or, god forbid, James, had had to do anything about it.

“How’s your arm?” Q called over his shoulder to Daniel, whom Mathew had bitten in the process of being removed from something he was trying to claim. Daniel eyed the scraped bruise in an unimpressed fashion.

“Oh fine, just another for the collection. Little biter.” James frowned at that and retreated to the kitchen, coming back with the first aid box and busying himself around Daniel’s arm in a no nonsense fashion.

“Keep it elevated if you can, stops some of the swelling.” The alpha advised. Daniel looked both amused and a bit surprised that James was tending to him.

“I will if I can. I’ve rather got my hands full.” Mathew, who had been watching, was flushing a guilty red and squirming where he stood.

“Mathew did a Bad Thing.” Beth stage-whispered unnecessarily into Q’s ear. Mathew only looked more guilty at the words.

“Shh Beth, tell me about school okay?” Q soothed, and as Beth began to natter happily Mathew broke free of Daniel’s hold and ran to the front door.

“Mathew!” Daniel was up and following him like a shot, casting a quick and desperate glance at Q who nodded. James grumbled and headed out after them as he saw the alpha pup running down the road.

The door swung shut behind the trio, and in the silence only Alice made noise, banging her rattle around with a confused expression at its’ existence.

“Mathew’s getting in trouble.” Beth murmured in a worried, awe-struck voice. Stewie took a few hiccuping breaths, and began to cry.

“Oh no, Stewie.” Gently resting Alice down to the safety of lying on her back, Q curled an arm around Stewie and encouraged Beth closer.

“Dada left me!”

“No, Stewie, he didn’t.”

Beth, usually so talkative, just whined and began to clutch her younger brother, stroking his oh so soft hair.

“Mathew will be fine, your Dada is just going to talk to him. And then they’ll both be right back.”

“Mathew’s being mean all the time.” Beth complained. “I hate him!” She stomped her own little foot and Alice started to cry at the rising emotions in the air.

“Okay now pups, it’s okay, I’ve got you.” Q’s rather high pitched voice tried to soothe the three miserable life forms around him whilst feeling hysteria bubbling up.

“Beth, why, why don’t you help me with… changing Alices’ nappy, hm? That way you’ll know how to do it for yourself one day when you’ve got a pup?” This seemed to somewhat mollify Beth, who nodded and straightened, only for Stewie to try and make a bolt for the door.

“Stewie!” Honestly so stunned by the unusual behaviour from the well behaved omega pup, Q for a moment was shocked at how fast he moved.

In his moment of distraction, Beth started to try and pick up Alice.

“She’s miiiineee!” Beth cooed sweetly and Q just about lost it.

“STOP!” The shouted command sent both pups into freezing. Alice was still crying and Q grabbed her up with his breath a bit frantic. “Both of you, go to the nest. Now!” Q pointed at the pile of bedding lying around the sofa, as it so often was.

“But-“

“If you don’t go to the nest right now you’ll be in very big trouble.” Q invented off the top of his head, desperately.

Stewie looked shocked and stumbled towards the nest, Beth, wide-eyed and lip wobbling, followed. The two pups sat down at the centre and Q, fighting his own wailing offspring, handed them the bag of toys Daniel had brought over.

“Good pups. Now play nicely and stay on the nest.” They did, luckily… although Beth was giving him a slight side-eye that Q could honestly recognise from some of his Double Oh’s. One that practically smelled of rebellion and trouble.

The only mercy was that Alice didn’t really need a nappy change… Though she did cover him with tears and snot but what was new there?

Q walked around bouncing her to try and soothe her whilst the two pups sat sequestered and was almost faint with relief when James opened the front door and poked his head in.

“Daniel’s going to go, I think I should help him get them all back home.” Even whilst he spoke, James was looking around the room with an expression that suggested he was changing his mind.

“Okay,” Clearly the naked relief in Q’s scent steadied the alpha’s position. “Beth, Stewie, thank you for staying on the nest, you’ve um, done very well, thank you. James is going to take you to your Dada.”

Both pups stood as James came over to grab the bag Daniel had left.

“Are you mad Maurice?” Beth, calculating little monster, asked of him, in a tone more curious than upset. Stewie still seemed blindsided. Served him right for scaring Q half to death.

Alice screamed in his ear and Q offered the best smile he could under the circumstances.

“No no, just stressed. Thank you for listening to me Beth, Stewie, you’re good pups.” Stewie sobbed at that and made a run to hug him. James scooped the omega up, the alpha girl under his other arm and the bag over his shoulder. Beth squealed a somewhat entertained and somewhat outraged scream that matched Alice’.

“Come on, can’t keep your mother waiting.” James insisted even as the pups began to protest and squirm to get back to him.

Q mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ at James and groaned as the door shut.

It took Alice forty five god damn minutes to cry herself into sleep, Q neurotically checking her over but finding nothing wrong. By that point, he had a raging headache that left him feeling a little sick and went to just lie in bed wallowing in the disaster that was childrearing.

-00Q00-

James didn’t approach the omega and pup exchanging initially heated and then, on the pup’s part, tearful words. He just oversaw that, having run twenty meters down the road, both pup and parent were fine. Daniel had been briefly apoplectic at Mathew when he’d grabbed him out of the dangers of traffic, then comforting as his eldest child had wailed in apology for biting and hurting his mother.

James bore silent witness with an edge to his frame at seeing two vulnerable people in distress. He may not have much love for Villiers, but he didn’t want the man or his pup in danger.

After a few teary minutes, Villiers picked up Mathew and came back to James with an exhausted expression.

“I think it's best if I just take them home, you understand.” Mathew was clutched crying loudly and distraughtly into his mother’s shoulder and James could see the shadows, so like his Q’s under the other omega’s eyes.

“You alright?” He asked, quietly. He couldn’t in good conscience let M’s mate travel in this state with three pups.

“Difficult phase.” Villiers responded with. James nodded.

“Let me drive you back, I’ll get your other pups.” He didn’t leave the man the time for debate that he would Q, because James wasn’t interested in having his commands denied when they were so obviously needed.

“Bond,” James looked back, nearing his own house and hearing his own child crying. “Thank you.” He nodded at Villiers as the man went about unlocking his car.

His own house featured two stunned silent kids sitting neatly on Q’s latest nest, and his own omega looking like he was about to have an apoplexy whilst trying to hush their daughter.

Q’s relief at his suggestion to take the mini Mallorys home however left him manhandling the pups with ease towards their mother. Q would be much better off left with only their one child, even if she was having one of her rare squalling fits.

Outside with Stewie seeming happy to be bounced and Beth pretending not to like it whilst giggling James pressed the pair of them into the car alongside their now sobbed-silent brother.

“Are you okay?” Beth whispered oh so quietly to Mathew in a way James probably wasn’t meant to hear. “I touched Alice.” She then added conspiratorially and Mathew sobbed again. As James got into the drivers’ seat Stewie whined from his car seat in the middle, and pawed at his brother who sobbed again.

“I hope you two were good for Maurice?” Villiers questioned over the back of the passenger seat, James pulled out onto the road, interested in what the kids had to say.

“Good as gold Dada.” Beth reported brightly and James forced down the urge to laugh at the clear lie given what he’d seen in the house.

“Muris say go nest.” Stewie informed miserably. “Babey cry.”

“Bethany?” Villiers drew out.

“He said we were good pups” Beth continued to report happily with a grin. Villiers, sensing a loosing battle perhaps, turned to James.

“To be fair, I didn’t see anything.” He informed the man. After all, snitches get stitches.

“I can call Maurice you know.” Villiers threatened, raising a brow. “He’d tell me if you did anything wrong.”

“Beth says she touched Alice.”

“Shut up!” Beth and Mathew promptly began fighting and Villiers groaned.

“No squabbling in the car!” This seemed to hush them up, along with the man’s impatient tone, and Villiers hurried to turn on some child-pleasing music.

“I’ll check when I’m back, but it seemed under control.” James informed, retracting his previous feeling about snitches in lieu of seeing a, now fellow he supposed, parent suffer. Christ knew he wouldn’t want another alpha keeping details about his kids from him. “I think Q sent them to the nest for a time out but I don’t know why.” James communicated this quietly under the music. He might understand the need to be a double agent, but he wasn’t about to get caught. Villiers sighed and ran a hand over his face.

“Sorry Bond. I feel I’ve only made things harder for your situation by coming over.” James glanced at him a bit surprised.

“I’ve been talking to Q-Maurice,” Villiers self-corrected, “over the phone, Mathew has been going through some difficulties recently. When you came over that time, I didn’t know how I’d have the time to come over and help.”

James digested that slowly, hearing only too easily the exhaustion in the other man’s tone.

For the life of him he didn’t know how M didn’t bring his mate and home stress to work with him.

“Don’t worry about us, we’ve got some things we’re trying. And you’ve got your hands full.” Villiers laughed at his words. “If we can help at all…”

“James Bond, for all your many talents, I think we’re better sticking to our own family problems from now on, don’t you? I’ll talk to Maurice if I need to, and you can talk to Gareth if you need anything.”

“Understood.” For a bit he felt maybe a little miffed and pushed aside, though he delivered the highly strung family to their door and saw them inside safely before hailing a taxi to head home. But really, it was a bit of a relief, he had more than enough on his plate with his own mate and pup. Q could maybe help Villiers and vice versa. James felt much more comfortable talking to M.

-00Q00-

James’ hand stroking over his pounding skull woke him. Q could feel himself rapidly approaching a migraine and groaned a little, sorry for himself.

“I don’t think I want children anymore. Think we can still exchange her for store credit?” James laughed in the way he did when surprised, until Alice voiced her displeasure at the mere suggestion and began to cry. “We spawned a demon.”

“Shh Love.” James soothed, going to collect and bounce their pup. Q buried his head under the pillow, feeling the nauseating vice tighten in his skull. “I think she might be hungry.” James winced the words and Q attempted to sit up, wavering a little due to both the pain radiating in his skull coating his eyes and the fact that he’d tried to keep his ears smothered by the pillow whilst he moved. His face-flop back to the bed had James growling a bit.

“I’ll try and get her going on the bottle.”

“You’re an angel from heaven.” Q moaned his deep, profound appreciation and tried to pretend the world wasn’t dissolving and forming sickeningly around him.

After a long while of hearing Alice building up to a crescendo though Q admitted their joint defeat and managed to pool himself out of the bed and stagger downstairs. The journey added pressure to his head with each step and he was a little blind with pain once in the room with Alice’s screams.

James looked beside himself as Q slumped on the doorframe and offered a hopeless expression.

“She’s usually so good.” The alpha’s despair over that and frantic looking need to soothe his child left Q smiling a little despite himself.

“Everyone has their breaking point it seems.” He managed to move to the source of the racket and the two of them tried to quieten their possessed child. Eventually, right about the time Q thought he was going to throw up rather than just gag occasionally in pain, Alice deigned to latch on and drink. James swore under his breath and took a moment to lean against the kitchen counter, head in his hands. Q slouched next to him, supported mainly by tenacity and the surface behind him, wavering a little even so.

“I’ll schedule an exorcism. Alec probably knows someone.” James joked, and then turned to Q and turned a little more serious. Q lent into his mate’s hands when they moved to hold him him and pressed his aching skull into James’ neck. “You’re white as a sheet.”

“I’m going to throw up.”

“No you’re not.” James gentled him, even his low voice almost too much right now. Once Alice was finished Q handed her over to James and watched the man burp her and eye the dainty little pup in case she started bawling again.

Q managed to ease himself to the floor and press hands against his eyes, unwilling to move again for a long while.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to have the Mallorys over again.”

“Skewing the pup to adult ratio is clearly a bad idea.” Q mumbled in return. “Was Daniel ok? Mathew?” He looked up only to cringe back away from the light.

“They got home safe. Villiers is tough, he’ll handle it.” Q nodded, he’d check in with his fellow omega later, right now he only had the energy to allow James to coax him back to bed.

-00Q00-

The aftermath of The Mallory Incident had left Q with a migraine that lasted nearly the whole weekend and barely able to feed Alice, who was still being a madam and throwing upset tantrums at the drop of a hat. The screaming cries of their newborn were making Q physically sick with the pain in his skull, and there wasn’t much James could do other than try to bottle feed her more and keep her downstairs. Q couldn’t separate himself for long, even feeling so unwell, and thus the cycle continued until Q’s migraine petered out, eventually, on its own.

They had had to cancel Mycroft coming over on Saturday, which had perturbed the man greatly, given that he hadn’t seen his little brother in months. James knew Mycroft was interested in seeing his niece, but thought that the man’s priorities always were and would be his omega brother.

The alpha wondered if that would be different if they had an omega child instead of beta, or even an alpha, but tried not to dwell on it. If anything the man’s tendency to fawn over Q rather than Alice would probably help his omega’s recently so well developed protective instincts.

Luckily the more frequent time James was spending at home seemed to be helping with that too, easing the protective burden Q was placing on himself.

Still, after Alice’s duly dubbed Weekend of Terror James could admit he was quite happy to get back to MI6 on Monday. The gun range had never seemed like such a quiet, restful place.

“Look at you, Bond. Domestic bliss settling in is it?”

“Piss off Laura.” 002 laughed at him and turned back to her own firing range. James fired off another round and let the bang and kickback soothe him.

-00Q00-

Sadly, the Weekend of Terror morphed into a far more gruesome Fortnight of Teething Tantrums.

Alice became a very unhappy pup, throwing off her own schedule with wailing fits and then becoming unhappy about the change in routine. James’ days at work were something of a fragmented relief, and he could admit to having a couple of naps in his office on Wednesday. Q, without any such reprieve, abandoned all work and James came back to find an increasingly frazzled mate. Q’s hair stuck up in every direction, there were permanent shadows under his eyes and the omega had developed a rigorous system for Pup Distraction that by the second week of Alice’s teething seemed to be doing the trick. James, a bit helpless in the face of his mate’s full-throttle, exhaustive success, could only follow orders.

“She cuddles for thirty minutes whilst she sobs.” Q informed James on Saturday morning, handing over Alice after their daughter’s seven AM feed. James hadn’t seen the morning schedule yet, having worked mornings Thursday and Friday, and took their babe and the instruction as if it was a mission.

Q was certainly treating it like one.

“Within that time she’ll probably toilet.” Q added, hurrying through getting dressed and leaving his hair in even more of a tangle.

Alice, diligently, was sobbing against James chest, pushing herself away and occasionally batting at him with little fists.

“She doesn’t seem to want to cuddle.”

“Give her here.” Q, now clothed, took the pup and the change was immediate and effective, Alice curled into him and cried droopingly into his neck. “Don’t be offended, it’s just routine.”

“Not to worry.” James replied, amused more than anything.

After that Q began an offensive. Alice was given a teething ring from the freezer. After a set amount of time that Q seemed aware of, the pup was swapped to sitting in her high chair. James, who hadn’t seen her use it before, became a little distracted by that himself, whilst Q let Alice investigate cooled apple and banana puree.

James raised his eyebrow as Alice smooshed her hand through some of the sauce on a spoon Q was holding, the omega eating a bit of the puree with a second spoon for himself.

“What? One of us might as well eat it.” He complained at the look. After a few minutes Alice finally seemed to grasp that spoon went in mouth not fingers on spoon, and sampled some of the mush. “Clever girl!” Q crooned and made an inordinate fuss of her whilst James watched, grinning.

Throughout the day Q alternated Alice’s activities regularly whenever some tears seemed about to start, until about lunchtime, where Q sat next to Alice on her nest bed, produced a new cooled teething ring and met James’ eyes with a haunted gaze.

“Now we cry.”

“What-“ James had no sooner spoken than Alice bawled, throwing the teether and inconsolable. Q, other than some calm ‘shushing’ or murmurs of ‘its okay’, left her to it, occasionally returning the ring. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

“Nothing makes her happy at midday. She has everything she needs, she needs to learn a bit of self soothing.” James was a little perturbed, but after ten minutes Alice’s wails softened and she brought the toy to he mouth to gnaw.

“There’s my brave girl.” Q encouraged gently, kissing the pup on the head. Alice scrunched her face, and James didn’t need to hear Q’s next narrative, he said it himself.

“And now we poo.” And surely enough, Alice did. It wasn’t pretty.

The afternoon James followed Q’s instructions and although a little bemused at first with the change, Alice soon accepted his presence with a smile.

“I take care of her all week and she doesn’t smile once. You come along and she’s instantly charmed.” Q commented dryly. James’ own smirking smile matched his daughters and stretched his lips, but he gave Q a kiss to help soothe the man’s grump.

“You are the cleverest person in the world.” Q scoffed whilst looming a bit pleased despite himself. “Not to mention the finest thing on two legs that I’ve ever seen.”

“Stop it.” Q replied, grinning a bit, hand self-consciously going to his hair and then stomach. James didn’t know why the man doubted himself, even if a hairbrush might be nice.  
The weekend progressed following the plan, and James was made an obvious second best at meal times in favour of Q’s nipples, as usual. James decided that now probably wasn’t the time for visitors and fretted a bit that his careful plan was going to go wrong, but Alice’s care had to come first. At the end of the second week their pup seemed to calm and return with gumption and insistence to her usual routine. She was also beginning to roll over rapidly whenever she did so, and rock towards trying to get any teething toys that rolled away from her.

Whilst their pup recovered merrily, Q slept like the dead.

James called in for an emergency day’s holiday on Monday, simply because he couldn’t bare to wake Q up when the omega managed to fall asleep through Alice’s morning feed and looked one mad hair away from a breakdown.

The omega had clearly given all he had to the teething nightmare for the last two weeks and was now beyond functioning. James thought Q more than deserved some extra rest.

The months of baby care and ensuing stress had thinned the omega down considerably. Q now sported a very gentle pudge of belly around where he’d once carried their daughter. James had to school his libido swiftly in case it grew too strong to ignore again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've struggled with future plans for this story this week, it's an oddly unplotted set up to be working with, and I'm having to put my thinking hat on. Also, I have no idea what to make them do for baby-care when they're back at work. I don't really want to write a nanny character since I prefer not to use OCs, is it OK just to plop Alice into Daycare... who knows!  
> Feel free to leave any thoughts you have on the matter whilst I go on yet another desperate research binge for child facts, see you all next week!


	4. Seven - Eight Months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another week, and another Lockdown for England. Stay safe out there wondrous readers, here's something to entertain you in the meantime!  
> Thank you for reading, commenting and kudosing!

Quite when it happened, Q didn’t know, but things seemed to have settled somewhat. Following her teething weeks, Alice sported a pair of little buck teeth that whilst adorable meant she sometimes bit him when feeding. Q swiftly began trying to gently wean her onto whatever food he could, and pumping a couple of meals worth of milk into bottles for Alice rather than face getting mauled.

If nothing else though, Alice’s sleep seemed to be calming into a longer rhythm, which Q was achingly grateful for.

“Ready Q?” James finished getting his shoes on and turned to where Q was wrestling Alice into shoes and socks. She’d grown through about three pairs already and Q didn’t know why they’d bothered. If the little fake-wellies didn’t look so damn adorable for the minute until they fell off Q would give up completely.

“In a minute.” James came over and helpfully waggled Alice’s rattle over her head so that she was distracted from merrily kicking her feet. That done they strapped her into the new baby papoose they’d had to order once she’d grown out of her sling and Q donned the baby.

He’d had the foresight to put his own shoes on beforehand at least. James stroked Alice’s head as she beamed gorgeously, a new trick she’d picked up, and gabbled at him.

The family left their house and strolled over to their nearest park. Q had given in to James’ exercise regimen finally, and accepted the 45 minutes of enforced walking with good grace these days. The weather was warm outside in mid July and James had with him a cooler and picnic basket.

“This feels particularly mundane.” The alpha grumbled a little.

“As if you haven’t spent half of your downtime from missions lounging and eating on beaches.” James grinned at that.

“Well we could always go to the seaside.” There were a lot of images that flooded through Q’s brain at that. Not the least of which was the idea of James in swimming trunks. Surprised at himself and the shot of lust running his veins Q coughed a bit and blushed.

“Alice might like the ocean.”

“Just Alice?” James teased, having caught the blush and possibly the scent of arousal from Q. The omega hadn’t felt spontaneously turned on since before giving birth and, flustered unreasonably, turned his attention back to their walk.

“I don’t know what you’re implying.” James tucked an arm around him and chuckled warmly.

They ate a peaceful picnic and Alice enjoyed crawling in her stop-start way through the grass under her parents’ hawk-like gazes.

“We need to get a stair gate up.” Q murmured absently. They’d baby proofed most of the house already, Q had had little else to do when pregnant in the last month. Other than impersonate a beached whale.

“Oi! Easy there,” James lurched forwards to snatch their pup away from an eager spaniel that had bound over. Alice just stared at the dog as if being shown an alien. Q, leaned over.

“Alice, this is a dog.” James laughed at him and Q looked over affronted.

“You’re meant to say doggy or puppy Q, even I know that.”

“That’s not scientifically accurate.” James pushed him gently as the owners of the errant canine approached apologetically. Q found himself a bit heady and excited from the easy playful affection from James and forgot to be protectively feral for a moment.

He didn’t doubt for a minute though that James would be able to take down a spaniel and its owner if they became a problem.

Schooling himself back together, Q distracted himself from his unexpected hormones by helping encourage Alice to crawl over the grass to him when the dog had gone.

-00Q00-

The peace of their house in the evenings had been broken by increasingly frequent calls from Mycroft. James sighed from where he was flipping through a picture book as Alice pawed curiously at the pages. The pup was sitting in his lap in front of the ‘reading nook’ Q had created out of the window seat in their lounge.

“Your mummy’s brother has what we grown ups call ‘trouble letting go’.” James informed his daughter solemnly. “Not like you Alice.” The pup turned to him with her big, slightly changing eyes, once periwinkle blue from birth, now morphing slightly through the spectrum. “Hello, yes that’s you.” James encouraged with a smile. Alice had recently begun responding to her name, and gave a happy, slightly toothed giggle at James’ attention.

“Mycroft, I told you, you can come over on the weekend-“ Judging by Q’s expression, Mycroft did not agree to this. “I have to do work on the weekdays- no, no that won’t help,” Q heaved a big sigh, on his lap, Alice did the same, contorting her face into a frown as Q’s did. Personally, Bond though Q should just give up now, Mycroft usually got what he wanted.

“The earliest is Friday.” Q replied to a question from his brother, mouth twisting into a familiar cadence that it always did when he lied. “Fine. Thursday. But it’s your own fault if I’m grumpy.” Q warned and hung up after a smug sounding retort from Mycroft.

“He keeps wanting me to go meet him for tea. It’s too embarrassing to explain to him that I barely leave the house.” James stood and went over to him, Alice making a pouting noise at scheduled ‘story time’ being interrupted.

“He’ll understand.”

“He won’t.” Q corrected in disbelieving worry. The omega removed a screw from behind his ear and picked up an abandoned screwdriver to continue attaching the final baby gate into their house. James winced at the sight of all the waist-high gates in their otherwise gorgeous home. “He’ll think I need therapy or something.”

“Do these really need to be so high?” He asked, Alice squirming about in his arms with a sulking noise. “Wait a minute.” Headed to her absently. They’d both gotten a bit more relaxed recently about hanging off their daughter’s every whim… they’d got about ten percent better anyway.

“This is your child we’re raising here James Bond. I’m not taking any chances.” Q replied, and carried on turning their house into a baby Alcatraz.

Shaking his head, James left him to it and returned to where Alice wanted him to be, with the books. She didn’t seem interested in his attempts to get her to read them however, and instead entertained herself with pulling them all slowly and ineptly from the shelf, laughing.

“Maybe your mum’s right.” James reflected, trying to fix the damage only to have Alice squeal with laughter and repeat her game.

She liked doing that, repeating things. And spent the rest of reading time bouncing up and down in James’ lap and dissecting the books from their case with inefficient determination.

-00Q00-

Approaching 8 months old, Alice had learned a whole new trick to tug on the heartstrings that was becoming Q’s latest achilles heel.

“Ba!” Whilst there was no uniform word with the gesture yet, Alice shot her chubby arms clumsily into the air with a barely toothy grin, gum line a faint bit red where more teeth were teasing through. Mercifully these ones weren’t effecting her like the last ones had, or Q might have tried to sell her.

“Up?” He asked, increasingly coaxing with using simple single words around her as the little girl grew and learned. She waggled her fingers in a grabby motion as he approached her in the high chair. “I suppose that means we’ve given up on breakfast then?” Alice gabbled noises back to him and grabbed at his hair as she was lifted and settled. “You must behave today, Mycroft’s coming over and if we don’t both behave we’ll probably get sectioned.” Alice just stared at him, his hair nearly in her mouth, and squealed when he crossed his eyes at her.

Pleased with himself at stopping her from eating him, Q cleaned up her messy face and plopped her on the blanketed area of safety whilst he quickly cleaned the mess on the high chair’s table. Soon he was sure she’d grow into those muscles James probably gave her and then there would be no such assurances that he could take eyes off her.

Mycroft, typical to form, had decided that he couldn’t wait until James got home at lunch time to come over, and insisted on coming over for an early brunch. Q was shamelessly hoping that his brother would be bringing food that he didn’t have to source for himself.

He wasn’t disappointed. Mycroft brought in a healthy array of unhealthy goods and with them a hug for his youngest brother. Q sunk himself into the contact, subtly between Mycroft and Alice still, but relishing in the scent and warmth of his oldest brother none the less. Mycroft allowed him a moment to nuzzle with a fond chuckle before backing off.

“Aster, how are you?”

“Well enough, would you like to say hi?”

“Of course.”

Maybe Mycroft was better at reading him than Sherlock or simply sensible enough not to push the boundaries, because when Q made no move to hand Alice to the alpha, Mycroft did nothing to try and hold her, merely smiling at the pup’s chubby cheeks and growing mass of stringy hair.

“You both look very healthy.” Q allowed himself the flash of pride at the words and settled them down for tea.

“I’m afraid one of your habits has transcended to the next generation, Alice likes brunch as well.” Q explained, and offered Alice some banana slices on her high chair. Mycroft looked a mixture of satisfied and grimly displeased at seeing Alice bang her hands on her high chair table in excitement.

“I had hoped-“

“You insisted on coming here before the scheduled time when James could be around, choosing to ignore the consequences.” Q pointed out with a little bit of ill-hidden malevolent glee in his tone. He loved Mycroft, but the man had to learn that there was a reason Q kept things to a certain schedule. If it took Alice smearing banana pieces all over her face happily to do it, Q would count it as the gentlest yet most effective way to teach his brother a lesson.

“Yes, well.” Mycroft cleared his throat as Q grinned encouragingly at Alice’s enthusiasm and realigned himself back into a state of decorum. “Quite right too. A healthy respect for brunch should begin at a young age.” Mycroft toasted the little lady across from him with his cup of tea and Q’s heart melted a little.

“Thank you, Mycroft.”

“Not at all, now, the tiramisu or the black forest gateau first?”

-00Q00-

On Bond’s final half-day afternoon off the couple took Alice out on a stroll despite some rainy weather. James wasn’t convinced his time off had allowed him to completely ease Q back into a more normal way of life, but his time was up regardless.

“I’ll start looking into day cares and then whenever you next have time we can inspect them together. Daniel recommended a few as did Mycroft, unsurprisingly.”

“Little Eton no doubt.” Q laughed at his words though he didn’t deny them.

“I think there’s some solid options out there. There’d better be anyway. I’ve only got two months left to find one.” As he talked the fret weaved into the Quartermaster’s voice. James reached out to pull him closer, Alice gabbling at him from where she sat in her papoose around Q’s front.

“We’ll manage. It’ll be fine Q.” He squeezed Q’s middle as the omega ran his hands over their pup, caressing the hair that was starting to curl in its growing whisps. “She’s getting these curls from you you know.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Maybe she’ll learn to style hers.”

“You adore my hair and you know it.” James teasingly tugged on said locks just to hear Q’s breath stutter and kissed his cheek.

“I’ve got to keep a front up, gorgeous.”

“So,” Q wriggled out of the hold with a look that made James smirk unrepentantly. “New recruits?” He kept his voice quiet, even in the apparent suburbity of the London park there was no need to put any security at risk.

“Yes. Should be on my desk Monday. My new desk. A whole new office and apparently they’re also giving me a secretary of all things.”

“Well, you’ve really made it now, a whole secretary of your own? That’s practically a status symbol in MI6.” James grinned at Q’s words.

“Play nice, Q, you’re the one with the army of minions.”

“They’re not minions they’re-“

“Minions. And you love it.”

Q didn’t deny that, either.

-00Q00-

“Good morning, Mr. Bond.” James shook the hand being offered to him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, I am Ms Meera Batra.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Ms Meera.” The female beta opposite him raised a warning dark eyebrow at him and Bond felt mildly delighted by her ire alone, glad that the secretarial pool hadn’t sent him up a simpering fan.

“Here are your files, sent over this morning from the royal Navy, Marines, SS, Army and Royal Air Force, along with two candidates proposed from an ever hopeful Oxford.”

“How many total?” Bond queried, gesturing Ms Meera into the new office proper where she spread the folders over his desk.

“Thirty two candidate suggestions whittled down from over a hundred via the checks and background department.”

Her crisp, accented voice clicked pleasantly sharply over the continents in a way that reminded him of his Q. James sat down and nodded at her.

“Thank you.” He pulled the nearest file over and then lay it aside in favour of looking up. He was just opening his mouth to ask his new secretary a little about herself when the phone on his desk rang. They both looked at it. From now on, all but the highest priority calls would go through to his secretary’s desk first to be fielded to James as appropriate.

A familiar waiting calm washed through him as he answered.

“Bond.”

_“It’s Tanner. You’d better get down to Q branch. 0010’s mission in Cairo just failed.”_

The words sent a chill through him. Without hesitation Bond hung up and stood from his desk. “Excuse me, Ms Meera.”

“Of course.” She walked back to her own desk just outside the door from his as the agent stalked towards the lifts.

He descended to the dungeons with the worst of thoughts flickering through the back of his mind, images of his own failed missions, thankfully fewer than his successful ones by a winning percentage, but each of them horrifically easy to recall.

Witnesses lost. Allies dead. Information leaked. The public threatened. Or even just those simple little deaths of the common folk that MI6 couldn’t afford to care about compared to the big picture but rent James through the soul. Each innocent bystander killed, lost to a terror attack he could have prevented. Every time he himself had ended up caught, tortured, nearly dead and begging on a retrieval or stroke of genius…

0010 might belong to MI6, to M… But James had trained him, James had sent him out there. He was James Bond’s agent in more ways than he’d ever cared to count before.

Q branch was milling with techs that cast James wild or edged looks as he stormed through their melee, but the open office space that used to be Q’s was devoid of motion. Inside resided M, Tanner, 005 and R, the latter with his head hanging. As James entered, the only audible noise were rasping breaths coming over the comms. Three of the men cast him sharp looks as he came in, R just stood shaking.

_“Got the information, didn’t I? Dunno why yer all so, quiet.”_ 0010’s slurred Scottish voice rested heavily on the air. And James had never heard him sound like that before.

“Retrieval is on the way, double oh ten. Just…” Words seemed to fail R at that point, and M took over.

“Hole up where you can, Campbell. Stay on the line.”

_“Aye Sir.”_

Tanner moved over to where Bond stood as M beckoned him over, and begun muttering the particulars.

“Campbell’s been undercover for three weeks, weapons cartel poised to go nuclear. It seems they became suspicious and laid a false data trap to lure out any undercover agents. Even as he intercepted it and we received it it became obvious that it was false information designed to draw us in. The information he’s got is useless and his cover’s been blown.”

“Injuries?”

“Yes, they set their workspaces to blow whenever someone tried to transfer that specific set of data. R didn’t notice the futility in time. Now we’ve got an unstable set of potentially nuclear devices lost in the wind in Egypt and our agent down.”

M muttered a few parting words to Campbell and muted his end of the comms, turning to Bond as the man reached him.

“You trained the man, I need to know his chances of making it out without full scale assistance, or what he might try to do when he finds out the information was invalid.” Out the corner of his eye Bond saw R twitch at the words, still refusing to make eye contact with anyone in the room.

“We won’t know the extent of damage from the blast till he has medical retrieval from his contact out there, but it was enough to prevent him from getting out of the wreckage under his own volition.” 005 informed, remaining close to R in his wheelchair and steadfastly calm.

“He hasn’t had a mission fail before.” He managed to force the words out, somehow, with a clogged throat. “Don’t tell him it has until he’s under supervision.”

“My thoughts exactly.” M concurred, and 005 relayed this to the waiting contact en route to rescue their agent.

“Decisions will need to be made, depending on injuries, whether he is replaced on this mission by another agent, or is in a fit state to follow through.” M added, and Bond felt both tired and sick.

He remembered well enough how often M, his M, had told him to go clean up his own messes, sometimes travelling out of the country to do so. Remembered that she’d learned to dress him down like that because he’d never let himself be taken off a case. On more than one occasion that had led to his worst moments of tunnel-visioned regret.

“We need to know the extent of the injuries first. In my experience, there’s little a good agent won’t do to correct their own mistakes, regardless of the consequences.”

“That’s somewhat what I feared.” M replied knowingly, and nodded Bond a dismissal.

The agent shared a look with 005 and cast his gaze over R’s subdued form as he left. There was going to be more than one person left affected by this failed mission.

As he returned to his office, and James looked down at the folders of new naive people waiting for James Bond to send them out to their potential deaths and ruin, he found he could count himself as one of them.

-00Q00-

_-I’ll be late home tonight, somethings come up.-_

Q had looked at the message enough times in the last few hours to have them memorised, and his own response hadn’t garnered a reply from James. It worried him. Restricting communications was a very bad sign with James Bond.

There wasn’t much he could do until he knew the problem though, it wasn’t his place on maternity leave as he was. He payed attention to any emails through from his branch, and admittedly did a little digging, and at about seven received a copy of a Q branch mission summary. R’s description of the event was as brief and bitingly to the point as their part in missions usually dictated. A run down of equipment performance where necessary, a note of the purpose of the mission, a recount of any information recovered and what it pertained to. An account in numbers of reported losses or casualties.

It didn’t read well.

“Jesus Christ James.” Q whispered, reading between the lines well enough to gather the important notes as James would see them; that 0010 was in critical condition in an Egyptian hospital, as secure as was possible in a rising hostile climate.

With a burning agony he also recognised what the report would mean for his second in command; total mission failure. And due to misinformation slipping past Q branch’s intel department.

He went through his familiar feeling of gratefulness that Alice had started sleeping through the night completely as he put her to bed. He’d wait up for James, he couldn’t not after that.

Pressing a kiss to their pup’s head he watched her slumber.

Since she’d started eating semi-solid foods and supplementing her milk intake willingly, she no longer needed to wake during the night for extra feedings. Q still pumped milk for her, and she sometimes gummed on his chest hopefully, but she was nearly fully weaned off him now, taking the milk from bottles mostly instead of directly from him. Alice only breastfed just before bed now and first thing in the mornings. Whilst part of him missed the closeness, he couldn’t deny he felt better for it, more like himself.

Alice sleeping was one thing, but it didn’t do much to cure Q’s restlessness as he waited for James. By the time his alpha did come home, it was nearly midnight.

James had never lost the uncanny habit of moving soundlessly, and Q jumped when he felt a presence behind him.

“James.” He breathed out, turning to see his mate in the soft lamp light of their sitting room. James’ face was still, shadowed, his eyes that shade of too sharp that Q remembered from their first few years together. He closed his laptop on the coffee table and went around to nuzzle gently into the man’s neck. His hands held onto James’ waist, as if Q could ground him there.

Gradually against him James uncoiled just a little, first his hands coming to caress lightly over Q’s cardigan’d shoulders and back before pulling them together close, breathing in the scent of at his omega’s neck deeply.

Q stretched his neck gently to encourage the attention, murmuring a wordless noise and pressing a kist to James’ own skin.

James held him close for a long time, finally biting into Q’s claim mark like a reminder for himself. Q let him do it, even whilst the attention to the sensitive spot threatened to send him to his knees and left him dizzy and ungainly when the alpha growled.

“I could have lost an agent today.”

Q held him tighter.

“I never thought that would be my problem. Not remotely like this. It’s different if you’re there, stopping the bleeding, but this is clinical. And he’s mine. I trained him.” It was rare to hear James be possessive of anything other than Alice, himself, Trevelyan and to an extent Britain as an entity. Q went to pull back a little only to receive a growl and be reeled back in for another strong bite. Fighting the fluttering of his eyelashes and cursing his mate’s overwhelming presence a little, Q cleared his throat with some difficulty.

“Of course you feel responsible, I understand that, but it’s not your fault here, James.”

“That’s not it.” The man replied, a touch of impatience in his voice as he let Q go. “It’s not a matter of fault.”

“Is it a matter of guilt?” Q posed the question gently, not making a move closer to James until the agent expressed he wanted it. Instead he leant back on the sofa, hands resting on the back of the fabric.

“It’s a matter of responsibility.” James snapped. With sharp movements the man shed his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair at the kitchen table, moving to grab himself a drink of whiskey. “He’s out there, and not just him. Alec. Trotter, all of them. Except now I’m the one sending them out there. There’s very little I can do to ease any guilt you claim I might feel over that.”

The bottle of scotch clanged down on the counter as James took a drink from a tumbler, his shadowed back to Q.

Q had long learnt to not take these moments personally. It was the least he’d always felt he could do for his mate, who willingly took every neuroses Q dished out and more.

“What would you do about it if you could.”

“Bloody go out there!” James bit out, turning back to him but keeping his voice barely louder than talking volume. “Do something concrete rather than be the reaper assigning them their fates.”

Q thought the battle of being in the field was likely to haunt James all his life. He thought it a cruel end, to someone who had given so much of themselves so selflessly for their country, to feel survivor’s guilt for not dying for her.

He tapped his fingers on the sofa carefully.

“Is that what you want? Field work?” He kept his tone even. He never wanted James shackled, but he couldn’t bare the thought of him in danger again. He’d do it, if he had to. He’d known what he’d mated into and done it willingly. He couldn’t keep James here for him. He couldn’t even keep the man here for Alice, not if it would destroy him.

James didn’t answer, just looked at him, raising the glass to his lips as Q’s heart pounded.

They’d never talked about what would happen after Q’s pregnancy. Whilst Q had maybe foolishly hoped that James’ new jobs of training recruits and overseeing certain missions would keep the man satisfied, maybe nothing could truly quench 007’s thirst for adrenaline and patriotism.

Beneath it all, he truly believed that James Bond, feared nemesis of the worst organisations ever known, just wanted to do what was right.

They stayed silent like that until James finally prowled closer to wrap his arms back around Q.

“Lets go to bed.” Q accepted the kiss and let himself be tugged along willingly. Upstairs Q pulled James to the bed without bothering to remove their clothes and kissed the agent’s hands when they went to undo his cardigan.

“Shh you don’t need to.” He whispered the words pressing another kiss to Bond’s brow and curled the man in tight. There was a moment of tension before the agent surrendered, hands going from twisting at buttons to relaxing flat against him.

With a harsh breath out James shifted till he rested on Q’s shoulder, one hand pushing under enough layers so that his palm rested on the skin over Q’s heart. Free from the obligation to obtain closeness through sex, a hangover from missions Q had learnt rarely soothed his mate when in a mood like this, James managed to relax into something of a dose, though Q couldn’t say if the agent truly fell asleep before he did himself.

-00Q00-

The tense feeling of being locked in place crept up his spine. Cold metal around his wrists, ankles, legs, chest. Too tight in a band that stopped him drawing deep breath. That alone sent his pulse racing. Opposite him in the room were a thousand mingling threats concealed entirely by darkness, weapons pointed at him, people he’d lost, people he didn’t want to lose and if he couldn’t get out of the binds _this_ time, wasn’t quick enough, strong enough, couldn’t take the pain then he’d lose them again. Then it would _hurt_. He’d have failed and he _couldn’t move_.

“Come on you old bastard.” He grit the words out through his teeth, fighting the bonds. Across from him one figure on a similar chair turned to him as if he’d always been there.

“James?”

Q. He hung his head for a brief curse. Why did it have to be Q.

“I can’t get out of this one mate, it’ll have to be you.” To his side was Alec, beaten and bloody with one of his arms dislocated and head drooping. But he’d heard those words before, on another mission, a fateful one in Russia long ago.

“Shut up Alec, we’ll get out.” But he couldn’t move, paralysed, couldn’t draw breath.

“James, it’s alright.”

“No it bloody isn’t!” He railed against Q’s level tone, footsteps were entering closer, bringing the promise of threat and harm.

“You’re dreaming, James, you’re safe, you’re at home.”

“Don’t think we’ll see home this time, shame that.” Alec muttered beside him as a gun pressed to the man’s head. But James had gotten out of the cuffs last time this happened, he’d been quick enough- Opposite them A knife stroked over Q’s throat and the gun triggered as red filled his vision.

James woke up with a guttural scream that couldn’t get past his paralysed throat, trapped in his tight wound body with the grip of the dream still restraining his limbs.

“James, it’s just a dream, I promise.” Heart thundering and muscles strained tight against invisible bonds James’ eyes flew over to where the voice was coming from. Q was barely shilloetted in the dark of their room, just visible by the ambient light coming from a lit phone screen. Whole. Unharmed. Sweat covered his skin in a cold fear and his chest refused to expand enough to breathe. “You’re alright. It’ll pass.” Q’s eyes roved over him in a calming sort of worry. Every tensed limb in his body wanted to reach out and touch, hold, cement himself in the reality being presented. Awake now he could understand the lies of the dream but his body remained locked in that rigour mortis. A sensation all too painfully familiar from multiple times being held at other people’s mercy. Unable to move and breathe as he should and just waiting to take their punishment. Helpless until he could help himself or get extracted.

“I doubt you want me to touch you right now…” Q murmured, a familiar agony in his voice. “But if you can, try and breathe through your nose, smell our home. You’re safe, and I’m not leaving you.” Q had learnt these soothing mantras over their time together, even now the threat of being touched when he couldn’t move, even by Q, had him shaking in his prison. James both longed for the soothing touch and felt repulsed to his core at the idea of it. And he knew he’d lash out.

“Try to breathe for me darling.” Q gentled, voice calm though his eyes were pained. Trapped in his body and mind, James tried to comply. The scent of their home slowly seeped into his senses. The smell of Alice, their sweetly slumbering pup, content and young, that lightning calm of Q, a grounded live-wire, the mingling scents of their bed together even if he could smell his own sweat and fear rank on the air. Gradually it eased him into deeper breaths, his rigid limbs lost their tension and he could break free, shooting from the bed in a clumsy tumble and escaping into the sanctity of the bathroom.

He flicked the light on and splashed water over his face, breathing in gasping heaves of oxygen. For a while he stood there, braced against the sink.

James couldn’t remember the exact date of his last full on nightmare. He’d had smaller attacks of them in the last few years, but nothing so bad as that since the beginning of his mating with Q.

The paralysis tortured him, even more so than when he would wake up violent and fighting. The vulnerability plagued him to this day.

A winced, harsh breath left him, sagging down his aching, overwrought shoulders and threatening the back of his throat into tightening.

He should be free of this, this encompassing fear. He wanted to shake it off like a wound. But this was the hand he’d been dealt, he’d probably never be free of this. These wounds for queen and country that dissected his soul rather than his body.

There was a soft brush of sound against the door, Q making his presence known. James glanced at him through the mirror. Half of him wanted to soothe the worry he could see in those green eyes he so adored. The other half wanted to revel in the fact that he didn’t have to. Q had seen him at his worst and then some.

Q slipped wordlessly past and turned the shower on, allowing steam to fill the room. The idea of water wicking away the stale cold sweat from his skin and lingering stiffness of his limbs was like a light in the dark. James went there as if drawn, shedding his clothes and pulling Q in alongside him. His mate wiggled enough to get out of his own top and bottoms, James helping him along and pressing them both against the wall.

The water hit his back from above and almost unwillingly his hands closed around Q’s wrists, holding them with a gentle but unmovable force against the tiles.

“Sorry.” He near whispered the words, guilt wracking at him, over needing to subdue his mate, his light in the dark.

“It’s fine.” Q kissed the side of his face and James leant into the warmth, shivering despite the hot water. “Can I wash you?” James nodded, and let Q’s slender wrists go.

The feeling of long clever fingers traipsing over him relaxed those muscles that had yet to finally let go and James buried his face in Q’s neck, wrapped arms tightly around him and shuddered from his bones.

Chilled to his core James allowed Q what ministrations he could reach whilst surrounded by the alpha’s arms. They continued long after the point that Bond could pretend he was sharing a cleaning or sensual shower, just letting himself be held together by Q. Finally he sucked a kiss onto the omega’s neck, nudging his head back.

“You don’t have to,” Q hushed the words out, stroking his hand over James’ bowed head. “It’s okay.” James bit high on the man’s throat, hands curling around slender waist, reaching down between two cheeks to tease over Q.

“What if I want to.” The words were spoken into wet skin. “Will you let me?” That electric need to be alive was a drug he chased in moments like this.

“Always.” Q replied gently. His pupils were blown though and James’ fingers sought that wet heat he’d not had in months, entering Q and searching, playing. Q’s clever hands found his cock and sent James’ hips arcing into the contact.

“I want to fuck you.”

“So romantic.” Q quipped back.

“I’ll be gentle.” He soothed, meeting Q’s eyes in between kisses, their bodies sliding together under the spray of the water.

“Fuck gentle I haven’t been turned on for nearly a year.” Q’s complaint brought a laugh from James that the omega smothered with a passionate kiss, moaning against his alpha.

“Not here, come on.” James turned off the water and eased them out of the bath. The nightmare still haunted him, sitting just at his heels. But for now it was just him and Q. Wet and messy James pressed them to the bed, ruining the sheets in all likelihood, and wasted little time in covering Q. The omega bent his legs back and James settled between them, biting over Q’s neck roughly enough to make him gasp, other hand holding himself to help guide inside his mate.

Q swore and trembled as he was taken, sensitive and tight and nearly melting James into an orgasm on the spot. The wet heat gripped tight around him as lovingly as Q clung to him on the outside, welcoming the alpha as best he could. Despite his omega’s earlier desire for speed, Bond took him gently at first, savouring the feeling and shuddering as much as Q was after so long parted from the intimacy.

Soon he couldn’t hold back and Q squeaked rewardingly as he got roughly fucked and taken, finally just biting onto James’ shoulder hard enough to bruise. The sensation shot straight down his spine and James grunted as he locked knotted tight into Q, filling him and going distractingly lightheaded at the feeling of Q’s own climax coaxing on his own.

The pair rocked through the ecstasy and down to the sodden sheets, Q’s neck still in James’ mouth to the point where it felt a little swollen with the bruising grip.

Q soothed his own bite to James with sleepy kisses and, unlike himself, the alpha felt himself drop down into sleep whilst still tied off inside Q, hips working intermittently and held safe and close.

He woke later not to nightmares, but the feeling of Q wriggling like he did when he was about to pull off of James’ cock once released from a knot. The sensation was so endearingly familiar after so long that he couldn’t bare to let it end.

“Stay, please.” His words stilled Q’s movements.

“You won’t like it much later if we get stuck.” Q pointed out, though he didn’t try to move again.

“You’re plenty wet enough to stop that.” James insisted petulantly, pleased as he snugged his half-hard cock back inside Q’s welcoming body. The omega shivered a little, wet as promised, rippling around him.

“How you ever got laid with talk like that is beyond me.”

“You seem to like it.” James countered with. In the back of his mind threat and guilt still prickled and he humped into Q to chase the feeling away. Q moaned and surrendered, rolling back into James until they tied again.

In the morning Alice had mercifully slept until, the shadows hadn’t left James’ mind. Q was watching him when the alpha got out of bed, both still naked and covered in the evidence of their own lovemaking. The scents in the room alone should be enough to make him want to stay… but things had never been as simple as that.

“You want to leave don’t you.” Q didn’t phrase it as a question, his voice was low with sure knowledge.

James went to shower off, loathe though he was to lose the scent of Q on him, he never wanted to take the vulnerability Q offered up so willingly into enemy territory. When he came back not five minutes later, Q was watching, waiting for him with a pensive expression. James pulled on clothes.

“I want to be part of the retrieval team for Campbell. It won’t be too dangerous, but he’s my…” What did James want to say there, he glanced over towards where Alice lay sleeping. “Responsibility.”

Drawn to the sight and scent of his daughter James went to her crib, nuzzling her blonde head of hair awake. She blinked sleepily up at him and then offered her smirk and waved her arms.

“Uh!” In her garbled, sweet voice she rendered him powerless to resist, and James plucked her up and held her close. Alice giggled against him. James sniffed and nuzzled into her neck, scent marking her in a way she clumsily returned, and turned to watch Q dressing.

The omega’s movement’s were slightly sharp.

“You have to understand why I need to Q.”

“I do.” The omega sighed, dropping his arms after they battled into a shirt, and turned to James. “Just be safe out there. It’s more than just me now. I’d never shackle you here, but she deserves to know that her father will come back.” He pointed at Alice as he said it, and their ever-learning pup pointed back at her mother with a giggle and gabble. “Not just because he’s clever, and brave, and fiercely capable and stunningly determined but because-“

“She’s worth coming back for.” James finished, meeting Q’s torn gaze. “It’s a retrieval mission, Q. Not a field operation. I’m going there to support my agent, not to finish his job for him. I promise.” They held each other’s gaze for a while.

“And are you sure that that’s enough for you. Because if it isn’t, I don’t want to find out the hard way.” Q’s words were as close to pleading as the man got when in civil conversation. James’ heart felt heavy at them.

“You’re worth coming back for as well, Q.”

“I’m not denying that you feel like that but we both know it wasn’t your choice to leave field work, and we never talked about whether you’d go back to it-“

James halted the words with going over to the man, Alice reaching to grab Q’s hair when they were close enough. The easy way Q allowed it and reached a hand to curl around their pup would never cease to endear James.

“I don’t need it.” He tried to assure. “I just need to be there when I can be. I can’t promise there won’t be some dangers-“

“That’s not what I’m-“

“But I don’t need to be on a mission any more. You could be sent into the field to deliver technical assistance just as easily as me, that’s all I need, and only if it arises.” Q watched him for a long while, then accepting Alice as she barked a demand to change carers and begun to wiggle towards her mother.

“Will M let you go?”

“I think so. We’re breeding a new type of double oh here after all. The first ones trained by one.”

“Heaven help us all.” Q teased, though his tone was warm and his body loosing a little bit of the tension that covered it.

“Will you be alright here? It might be a few days, or a week.” This, James did feel guilt over, his plan had been to encourage Q out, not sequester him to being a single parent. It wasn’t permanent though, and James knew he needed to do this with every fibre of his being.

“I’ll cope.” Q replied, “As long as you come back.”

“I will.” He kissed the omega then, feeling only a little resistance, that borne of worry, on Q’s lips. “I swear I will.” He kissed Alice’s head too, scented the pair of them for a long while until Alice began fussing for food.

Whilst Q fed and dressed their daughter, James began to prepare, setting up the details with Moneypenny to relate to M, fishing out a trusty backpack to pack in. He couldn’t think of a way to say goodbye sufficiently, he hadn’t left Q overnight in the eight long months that they’d had Alice in their lives, and longer still before that.

“I’ll drive you to the airport.” Q insisted, and James nodded, relieved in a way, as the all clear came through from M. James insisted on dressing Alice into her outdoor coat for the September chill and settled back as Q navigated them through the streets of London to Heathrow. His flight for Cairo was going to be accompanied by one of MI6’s own doctors to analyse their agent’s recovery and Q snickered a little at James’ sneer over that, having to be seated with one of the people he typically avoided at all costs.

The pair parked and James found himself unable to drop his arm from around Q’s waist as they meandered towards check in through the airport. Waiting for them there was his secretary and Dr Lewis from medical.

“Ah, Ms Meera.” James greeted as his secretary welcomed them with a manila folder.

“Courtesy of work, your papers.” She informed, and shook Q’s hand warmly. 

Q nodded at her and Lewis, hefting Alice up a little closer.

“If you’ll excuse us for a moment?” At the omega’s request the secretary nodded, bid farewell to the three others and left. Dr. Lewis turned herself away from smiling at Alice and looked to her boarding pass.

Q nuzzled into James briefly, scenting him, always just a little more restrained when in public. Q finished with pressing a lingering kiss to the man’s lips that James welcomed and hung onto. Alice, a little confused by her new surroundings, frowned unhappily.

“I love you, you flighty bastard.” Q pushed him gently as he said the words, and James grinned, stealing them both back for another kiss.

“Meet me here when I come back?” Q straightened himself and nodded sharply.

“Of course.” Q assured, every inch the proper Quartermaster. “Good luck out there.”

“See you soon.” With one last caress to Q and Alice’s necks James turned to leave. He could feel Q watching him go till he’d made it through security.

The mild thrum of adrenaline beat into his veins, and that familiar yet altered weight of excitement and responsibility fell over his shoulders. He was still going out to protect Her Majesty’s interests, but in a new fashion. Over the course of the flight Bond settled into a well worn skin and turned his attention away from Q, Alice and home and onto 0010 and the situation in Cairo.

M had been clear he was there as an advisor and in an assistive capacity. With so long away from the field even though his credentials were still intact, he wasn’t able to accept field work responsibilities. James didn’t care about the technicalities, he was there to assist his operative, a new role, but one that offered a salve from old wounds.

The amount of lives he’d had to forsake, turn away from, agents shot down injured or allies caught and tortured… He’d had to learn to throw them all away and bury them deep to move on before, to focus on the mission ahead. Now his mission was the individual. James hoped that in some small part it would make up for what he had to let happen to countless others in his career, if he could just start to save some.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week was James' turn to be dramatic, there always seems to be one character or other wanting to offer themselves up for my particular brand of torture and I'm all for it. I am currently planning to keep bodily harm minimal, though of course we all know what I'm like...


	5. 9 Months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for supporting last chapter, you're superb! This chapter is a beast, and I hope it's an enjoyable beast. 
> 
> Also I am going back to work on Thursday after being on Furlough for months, whilst I hope this doesn't impact my writing, there is of course a strong chance that it will given my strange rota and less time to throw into this project.
> 
> Finally, this chapter breaks the previous format of the previous ones and the entire thing covers just one god damn day. Heaven help me!

Q couldn’t ever bring himself to watch planes take off to make sure they got in the air safely, no matter how important the person on it was. It was better for his nerves to merely have updates sent through to his phone that relayed such vital information in a neat, clinical package without the smell of jet fuel and the whirr of engines. So he bounced Alice on the way out of the airport.

Over the course of the last 24 hours and having delved into the mission reports and the ensuing briefs sent to him via R, Q had already been putting his quick mind back to use before he’d received a request from his second in command to drop a call in whenever he had the chance. Q expected that R had gone behind M’s back in order to send the message, and found himself nothing but pleased.

Not only did it show R’s ability to get information to the source directly and subtly, but it demonstrated yet again that Q branch always had been, and always would be, a close knit entity of those who understood a certain way of doing things.

Doubtless M had his best intentions at heart by restricting communication, but there were just some things that he was better off knowing, and that his subordinate was in any way needing support was one of them.

Q reached the car, Alice hadn’t been upgraded to being allowed in the re-built DB5 yet, but the Jaguar was no slouch either.

Typically their second car was whichever new model from branch Q wanted to grasp the handling of prior to field prep, and as such allowed him and James, the undying car enthusiast that the man was, to be treated to a new top of the range car as often as they desired. Prior to his maternity leave that had been whenever Q’s fingers got itchy for something new or when James would enter the garage and make eyes with a car as if he wanted to bed it.

Given that he’d not been in the office for months, their car hadn’t changed from the one James had driven Alice and him home in from the hospital, and Q had to admit he had grown fond of it now given its dutiful service to his pup. Now he coaxed the Jaguar to purring aptly into life and turned back towards London proper, though not quite towards home.

“Daddy’s going on an adventure, so can we, can’t we Alice?” Alice looked at him through the rearview mirror, seeming to be more aware of at least that this meant he was truly with her, if not understanding how mirrors quite worked. She looked him dead in the eye, grinned and threw her hands out in the air.

“Up!”

Q very nearly crashed the car. It was only through some miracle of skill that he brought it to rest semi-safely and flung himself around to Alice who laughed at his manic appearance.

“Up! Up up up!” His daughter immediately proved that she was a genius rather than the fluke Q had thought he heard and he all but threw himself into the back of the car to kiss and hug her as she squealed in delight at his odd behaviour. The ‘p’ sounded more like a ‘b’ but Q couldn’t have cared less for enunciation in that moment.

“You brilliant girl! Genius little Almione.” There, parked on the side of the windswept damp of September’s drift into October, Q snuggled their pup and for a moment forgot the stress of James leaving and the racing of his brain in favour of savouring just how bright and alive this little girl in his arms was.

It took a few minutes to calm down, grin splitting his face and feeling inescapably proud and elated as he clambered into the front, giving Alice more than one beaming smile as he set off again. Alice was growing up unstoppably, but rather than feel daunted by the fact or sorry for how swiftly it seemed that they’d made a little person capable of speech, Q looked out at the autumnal sunshine and increasingly turbulent colours with a sense of peaceful determination. Alice could grow, and so would Q. It was more apparent than ever that he needed to begin reclaiming the mantle of his codename and start becoming the Quartermaster once more.

He hadn’t let James in on R’s recent plea for help, it had only come through this morning after all, or what he planned to do next, because the man had enough on his plate with 0010’s mission crisis. That, or James would be too enthusiastic, and there were just some things that Q found easier to overcome under his own independence before second guessing himself. One of the reasons that Q would never want to take away Bond’s freedom, was that they were both inclined towards being self motivated and driven, and allowing each other that.

Punching the button for the AI he was toying with in the car to come online, Q cleared his throat.

“Send a message to The Boss;” a beep signalled the car’s readiness, and Q dictated “Free for a drop in today?” After a pause the car beeped to show the message sent, really it was attached through his phone contacts, so M would know who was sending the request. Soon enough, the car alerted him to an incoming message, and repeated out in an automated tone an affirmative, and the time of 11:30.

James had been dropped at the airport for 9:15, Q should have the time, he just hoped he’d also be able to have the support. Q addressed the car again.

“Call John Watson.” Alice was remaining entertained either by the scenery going by or the sound of voices in the car, and perked up to the sound of a ringing phone.

_“Q, hello there, this is a surprise.”_ John sounded pleased, relaxed, which was good.

“John, I’m afraid I’m calling to ask a favour, and its a big one.”

_“What does he want-“_

_“Back off Sherlock! Oh for-“_ Sherlock had clearly stolen the phone and Q sighed dramatically.

_“What is it? Need someone found? No you called John, are you hurt?”_ Given that Sherlock’s tirade of words were becoming gradually more deadly Q sighed quietly and reminded himself that he needed to get better about maintaining regular contact for the sake of his brother’s sanity. Not that Sherlock ever did the same.

“I’m fine, I called John because I need someone to watch Alice today.”

_“I could watch Alice.”_ Q coughed a little at the affronted demand.

“You could in the sense that you have eyes, and, yes you could watch her.” Q finally admitted with a little wilt of defeat. “To be honest though, I’d rather John was there too.”

_“In case of medical emergencies?”_ Sherlock’s words were nearly taunting.

“Because he actually has knowledge of children other than me, and Alice _is not me_.” Q’s words were a little strained at the end there, tense with everything he wasn’t saying, didn’t want to say out loud.

_“You don’t trust me.”_

“I trust you with my life Sherlock. Her’s I can’t.” He managed the sentences with a steel that he’d learned entirely from working in MI6, and there was silence down the speakers of the car for long seconds.

_“Give me back the phone, stop terrorising him.”_

_“But he-“_

Q very much thought he wasn’t meant to hear the next words John muttered but John couldn’t know how good his car’s speakers were.

_“He’s scared Sherlock, this is his kid and your attention span and choice of pursuits isn’t always child friendly. He said he trusts you, alright? Let it be enough.”_

There was longer silence after that and Q felt guilt and sorrow pool a little up from his guts. Knowing what he did of how Sherlock had treated him as a child, though the man had been a child himself, and how Sherlock tended to be, well, deranged at times to put it lightly, he just couldn’t compute how the man would look after Alice.

“Let me speak to him a moment John.”

_“Put him on speaker, you might as well hear too, since you two are so close.”_ The vicious lilt to his brother’s voice both cemented Q’s resolve and left him determined to resolve what damage he could. Q was aware that he’d probably punished Sherlock more than enough for whatever slights had happened when they were younger, but it was one thing to forgive him for them, and another to forget.

He’d also hardly be a good brother or parent if he put Sherlock in a position that his brother couldn’t handle, or threatened to endanger his child.

“I’m sorry Sherlock, those words weren’t correct. It’s not her life I don’t trust you with, I know without a doubt you’d protect her from danger or harm… but she isn’t in danger, what she needs is care. I think you know just how good John is at that, regardless of whether he wants to take her just now after this palaver… I hope you can understand why I’d rather leave the delegation of day-long care in his hands.” Q spoke the words softly but firmly, and didn’t receive a reply from his brother. Q took a breath. “I shouldn’t have called it was an imposition anyway. Goodbye for now.”

_“Q wait-“_ But Q hung up on John’s words and disconnected the car from being able to receive calls, his phone set to vibrate quietly in a way he wouldn’t hear over the engine.

Maybe some of Q would always choose running away when it came to his family when things got tricky, no matter how much they all grew up. He didn’t want to upset Sherlock’s prickly feelings, but knew even if the beta was more than capable of following a routine with Alice just to prove how simple it was, he’d do it in a bored or possibly careless fashion that scoffed at how he didn’t require instruction.

Alice did not deserve to be handled with boredom or callousness. Q would avoid every single instance he could that might mean she felt even a smidgen like he had as a child. Made to feel like a nuisance, or lesser. Even the thought coiled like wires in his chest and Q glanced back to check that his pup was still alright.

She was, of course, and offered a frown that probably matched his.

“M will just have to forgive me the massive impertinence then, won’t he. Because if I don’t force myself to get out I’m going to shelter you too much and I know it.” Q’s tone might have been a little flatter than earlier, but Alice didn’t judge him for it, thankfully still too young for that or his admission, and Q felt just a bit too isolated right now to think of another clever way to get around everything he wanted and needed to do today.

M had to be seen, because Q need real, concrete time back in his branch in order to begin transitioning back into what his job demanded he be.

R had to be talked down off the metaphorical edge. He’d never had a mission fail before either, as much as 0010 was new to it, so was R. His branch and subordinates would always be a top priority.

And as of tomorrow when he’d gotten the first two things on his list done, then Q would throw himself into finding a day care for Alice. A daunting prospect when both James and he not only had parental high standards but a severe need for security given their jobs, and if not that their paranoia.

He could do it though, he did well under pressure, and John Watson had, somewhat shamefully, been Q’s internal back up plan for probably far too long. But no. Q should never have let himself rely on that tentative promise any more when he hadn’t even asked the man.

He’d have had better success asking the request of Mycroft, except that the results of a loveless handling of Alice would probably be the same with any nanny Mycroft could organise, and Q balked at that too.

So, not a little guiltily, and refusing to quaver at the slight audacity of his actions, Q drove resolutely into the garages of MI6. He’d been driven to this, and M had had a pup in the building before once too.

Refusing to be ashamed of the presence of his daughter Q parked, his plates and codes allowing him through the garage security, and got out of the car. A bag of child supplies that it was utterly impossible to leave the house without was slung soundly onto his back and Q leant into the back seat where Alice remained soundly tucked in her warm jumper, one adorned with mushrooms that Q couldn’t say no to, some of them matched his autumnal wardrobe after all. The pup’s bottoms somewhat set off his own Burgundy cardigan too, coloured in a similar fashion. Q honestly didn’t mean to plan such things, but his mind naturally liked order and symmetry and he was hardly going to get Bond wearing his preferred colours any time soon, so Alice would have to step in for her father.

Alice glanced around the new environment of the garage and kicked her socked and, previously booted feet. One of the boots had treacherously fallen off and Q fixed it back to her foot before offering a wider, more genuinely happy smile to his little girl.

“Ready for another adventure my little Almione?” She smiled along with him and waved her arms.

“Up!” Q melted and obeyed instantly, a little bit of his earlier confidence finding him once more. He’d have to get these sweeps and troughs of emotion back under control soon, despite how oddly freeing it felt with Alice to allow himself the freedom of going with them.

So with Alice in arms Q hefted her and allowed himself a single sharp, steadying breath before stalking off towards the lifts. It was only just going eleven, but being punctual was a skill of his and he doubted that Eve and Tanner, if free, would be averse to him lurking in one or other of their offices for a bit.

And if he became truly embarrassed or nervous, he could just go hide in a bog. He wasn’t above doing whatever was necessary for survival when it came down to it.

-00Q00-

Despite not going as planned, sometimes things oddly worked out. Security had waved Q and his pass through with slightly stunned but mostly professional looks, no one was going to stop the Quartermaster unless M commanded it. There were a few looks and stares and titters but mostly people had enough work to do and brains on them that they left well enough alone, allowing Q to reach the lifts in peace.

Several floors up where he’d usually head down to his tunnels, Q entered the slightly more dated setting of M’s floor. He was barely out of the lift before there was an excited squeal to his right.

“Q! You-“ Eve’s excited tones reached a pitch that she usually reserved for being drunkenly ecstatic as the omega turned enough to show Alice in the crook of his left arm. “Bring her here!” Eve commanded with a wide grin and playful growl. Q laughed a bit at her antics and brought Alice towards Eve’s grabby hands. He didn’t relinquish her though. Behind him Tanner spilled out of his office.

“Q!” The man seemed stunned, and looked bug-eyed at Alice. “Um, you really shouldn’t.”

“Trust me, I know.” Q said with feeling, watching Alice initially shy away from Eve but become entranced as the woman started cooing at her, all vibrance and warmth. Alice gabbled a grin.

“She’s adorable, just like her mother.” Eve grinned up at Q, who blushed a little. Tanner came closer, a little wary as he ever was around Alice, but clapping Q on the shoulder with a smile.

“Good to see you back in the building, Q, even with an addition.”

“That too of course.” Eve agreed.

“How are you two? How many cups of tea has today warranted so far?”

“Less now you’re here.” Eve replied staunchly.

“External Relations have been down my throat since morning, having their usual fight with Internal Relations.” Tanner complained, watching as Eve waggled her fingers over Alice and the pup reached back. Eve fixed Q with bedroom eyes.

“Okay you win.” Q knew himself beaten sometimes and felt quite relaxed back in his old haunt, passing Alice over to Eve. Alice looked a little stunned at the transfer but Eve soon distracted her, bounding the little pup gently and making faces for her.

“How’s human relations liking that?” Q asked with a grin, replying to Bill’s statement. Tanner just shook his head. He might be the overarching head of HR, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t also the overarching head of all the various relations departments, and these 3-way fights seemed to happen about once a year at least.

“About as well as usual. They’re suggesting to implement a mental health awareness week campaign in the office to entice people down to psych.” Tanner shook his head and Q tried to decide whether he more wanted to laugh or wince at the idea of MI6’s various evasive individuals being lured to the psych department.

Poor psych.

Not that Q much liked them either.

“Eve, when Q arrives, send- oh no.” M stood looking horrified as his door opened onto the scene of three of his favoured members of staff clustered together around a baby.

“Before you lecture me, I assure you this was a necessity.” Q hurried to address. “And that you once made me hold your own pup whilst you wrote a shopping list in that very office.” Q was pushing the fine line of professional and personal, but after a moment to glare at him M relented in a long suffering way.

“Get in here and stop being glib.” Sensing more bark than bite in his boss’ words, Q stole Alice back with a brief ‘sorry’ and headed in. He wasn’t at the point of leaving Alice undefended in MI6, that was for sure. Both Tanner and Eve offered him looks, Eve’s sympathetic and Tanner’s a sort of shrug suggesting Q had to know M wouldn’t like Alice’s presence.

Girding himself and trying to ignore just how un-work-appropriate it was to have Alice gumming on his cardigan, Q followed M into the office.

The alpha closed the door pointedly behind him and then went to sit at his desk. Q took the seat opposite, Alice in his lap, and M sighed at him, fixing Q with a look of quiet stern.

“Although your point out there was valid, this is not the environment for a pup, even for social visits. Q, what’s going on.”

M cut to the heart of the issue with just enough warning in his voice that the omega folded a little.

“I’m having a little trouble with pup care.”

“Bond did say you weren’t willing to leave her.” M agreed after a pause. Q filed away the information that Bond and M had been talking about him sneakily for later.

“I’m improved on that front. I’m here now after all.”

“With your pup.” M pointed out with, to be fair, valid pointedness.

“I had little choice today.” Q insisted firmly. Which brought him onto his next point with a little chagrin. “But yes. It’s been difficult to leave her, or to trust others to take her, I admit that.” The words cost him to put into the world, fearing that M would be well within his rights to suggest Q got his act together. “Which is why, regretfully-“

“No Q.” There M’s words of steel left no room for discussion and dread washed over Q as the head of MI6 leant forwards sharply. “You are not authorised to quit. Is that perfectly clear?” Though M couldn’t _technically_ deny him that, by the law at least, his sharp, almost ordered demand soothed Q as much as it startled him.

“What? Quit? No I wan’t to start coming back.” Q replied back. Alice smacked him with a fist and Q gently removed it as M sat back with a frown.

“Already? It’s September Q, you’ve got two months.”

“I’m aware. But I’m also aware that our line of work moves very fast, regardless of my own feelings, and I’m better designed to work from the office than home. Even if initially I’m only doing a couple days a week to catch up on things.”

“Then, what are you regretful about?” The question was drawn out suspiciously. Q straightened his spine.

“There’s no daycare space until December. My family is either dead or ill disposed to children due to their own work, and all my friends are in this building, as is my mate. I don’t have a plethora of options in the meantime.”

M took this in with the good grace to not comment on the dismal state of Q’s social life. MI6 hoarded orphans and the socially lonely with greed after all. All the better for their work ethic, typically.

“Say what you’re saying Quartermaster.” M suggested, voice a little warning in tone and Q saw he wasn’t going to be let off the hook easily. He refused to buckle under the look though, glancing briefly at Alice and then back, though he ducked his head in a little due deference. It wouldn’t hurt.

“Unless MI6’s SOP’s have changed recently to allow bringing a pup into the office on a more permanent basis, I see two options. Either I need to request security clearance for any suitable child care I find to be able to be tracked and countered by MI6’s systems… Or I find someone suitable from within MI6 to delegate into a role of child care.”

Q said his piece firmly, and finished with M looking at him like he was an alien.

“You really suit Bond don’t you, the paranoia in your house must be rampant.”

“It’s not paranoia it’s a practicality.” Q insisted, shifting Alice closer in his arms. “The less time I’m here worrying about the security of my child the more useful I’ll be. Until I’ve locked down and vetted a daycare what else am I supposed to do?”

Mallory frowned at him, clearly without an ideal answer. Q knew that Villiers had taken to working from home completely after they had their first child, and that suited the other omega quite well, but Q couldn’t do his job with his hands tied behind his back.

“You could not come back yet.”

“Quite frankly either you take me back for ‘keep in touch’ days now, or we wait another two months and risk another near disaster.” He was referring to the information mishap with R, along with the reports that he’d noted had a slightly lower performance rating than when Q had been there. R had held the shop beautifully, but something was clearly going wrong.

“I can’t free up personnel for this, Q, I’m sorry. But if you can find someone suitable to be vetted then I can certainly add them into one of our regularly swept locations.”

“Thank you.” Q breathed out, nodding.

“Thank me when you find someone.” M replied. “And Q,” The omega looked up, standing as M did. “Are you quite sure you’re alright?”

“Yes. Getting there steadily.” M eyed him carefully.

“I’ll have Tanner schedule you a pseudo work rota. I expect you to check in with me personally once a week, and you’ll need to have a physical in medical and typical reinstatement exam with psych prior to your return on December first. Which will be full time.”

“I understand.”

“See R before you leave. Even if you have the pup with you. God knows your branch probably wants to make a mascot out of her.” M shook his head and Q nodded.

“Providing I won’t be interrupting anything.”

“Fairly quiet day, but see what it’s like down there, you know how things go.” Q nodded and turned to leave.

“Q,” The omega turned back, and saw that this time M’s eyes were slightly tight in regret. “I’m sorry we aren’t able to assist you more outside of work, it’s rare that any of our employees are both of such a high status, and mated within the company. Whilst I feel a level of responsibility for you and your child, not to mention your wrecking ball of a mate, I can’t conjure miracles.”

“Thank you.” Q nodded demurely. “But I’m quite capable of getting things done without assistance… with the blip of today of course.” Q added as an afterthought, glancing to the pup in his arms.

“Consider it your due to be allowed this as your blip.” With that M waved him out and Q ducked out of the office. He closed the door behind him and, seeing only Tanner and Eve outside, let himself lean agains the wall with a sigh.

“Everything go alright?” Tanner asked, frowning over to him.

“Providing I can magic up someone to look after this one that I trust, then yes everything will be fine.” Q hadn’t told M just how tenuous his ability to do that might be, given his protective streak. Maybe he’d just have to bully day cares a little more.

“Q, can we do anything?” The gentle tone in Eve’s voice nearly broke him, but in MI6 he was the Quartermaster first and foremost, and he wasn’t about to break in the office.

“Thank you, but everything’s fine. M was very helpful.” Moneypenny’s phone rang after that, and Tanner gestured down the corridor, a rare flare of alpha protectiveness in his usually docile eyes as the man intended to walk him to the lifts.

“Q!” Eve’s call behind him had him turn around, she was looking a bit bemused at him, but intrigued. “There’s a Dr. Watson currently being observed by security in the lobby who claims he needs to see you urgently. This wouldn’t be the Dr Watson I’ve met would it?”

Utterly blindsided, Q blinked rapidly to clear his brain of shock.

“I assume so.”

“Security are saying he’s coming up clear, do you want them to send him away or-“

“No, no I’ll see him.” Q said, flustering only a little and mind whirring. “Is there any way security could direct him to a, um, discrete place to meet?” Q had a feeling that this was going to be anything but civil and calm, and he didn’t need to have a scene with a civilian beta in the middle of the lobby.

“I’ll have reception room 5A off the lobby made clear for you.” She replied without missing a beat, and Q nodded in gratitude. Tanner met a look from Eve as the woman got back on the phone.

“I’ll take you down there, it’s on my way.”

It wasn’t on Tanner’s way no matter where he was going, but the protective gesture warmed Q. He was in MI6 now, his domain. Here they rallied against threats from the outside like a swarm of bees defending the hive. As an integral member of the hive, Q was not surprised by the level of security being shown.

Down in the designated reception room, that was no doubt video monitored and had two guards outside as was standard for an un-vetted individual coming in to meet a high profile member of MI6, Tanner left him, though the man hovered by the reception desk and the security men shifted at the sight of Alice in Q’s arms; a double vulnerability.

Q doubted there was any danger from John other than harsh words Q might not want to hear, or, more worryingly, that Sherlock had done something stupid. He slowed his approach to the door in order to allow his mind to calculate what Watson might be after, but the man was so honestly straightforward that Q couldn’t quite peg him. He was usually Sherlock’s voice of reason and ultimate shield, Q couldn’t imagine what the man had come over here to say.

He only paused for a moment with his hand resting on the door before pushing it open, Alice watching with curiosity whilst chewing on her fingers. Within the white-painted brick room beyond stood a desk to the side, a few sets of wipeable chairs and John Watson standing to attention on sight of him.

Q watched the man take a second to glance to Alice in his arms and adjust his stance solidly, mouth set in a determined line. Q could have taken a line out of his mate’s book and waited for the other man to make the first move, but he was used to being the boss and taking matters into his own hands.

“I’m amazed you found the new HQ, though possibly it’s not too surprising given everything.” Everything implied both of his brothers and Watson’s own army and detective contacts, the man had surprising depths behind his calm disposition.

“I love Sherlock,” John’s starting statement rather derailed Q’s mental advances. “But he’s not always right.” The man finished calmly. “And he doesn’t always listen when he should.” Q remained cautiously still and John nodded towards Alice. “You’ve never asked for help with her, and certainly not me. I’d be honoured to look after her.” The words hit Q in all those still-squishy emotional parts of him.

“You would? But you have a job, and a Sherlock-“

“Are you trying to talk me out of it?” John asked with a slight smile.

“No… but I need you to be sure. I didn’t exactly give you much warning earlier and I rather paid the price for it.” Q pulled himself back together. “People can call me paranoid but to be honest there are valid reasons for that, both relating to my work and disposition.”

“I understand that.”

“Sherlock’s my brother, and I love him, I don’t want to upset him but the fact that he became upset about it worries me along with everything else.”

“Q, it’s okay.” John soothed, looking a little tired. “You know Sherlock, maybe more than he’d like some days, and he knows you. Once he pulls his head out of his arse to realise how monumental you asking for help is he’ll come round. Until then he’ll be insufferable.” John shrugged. ”It’s his way.”

With a breath out Q dropped a little of his guard and sat down, sitting Alice in his lap and letting her bag drop to the floor.

“It’s not like people are always asking me for help, I don’t see why I should bother them in return.” He shrugged. “And childcare, its a lot-“

“Q I’ve looked after babies in the family more times than I can count, so have most people. I’m not saying that should take your worries away, but I think it’s more that childcare and children seem monumental to you that you think it’s a burden to put on other people.”

That cut a little too close to home for him to answer, so he mulled the thought as John continued.

“As for not asking you for help, I can think of at least twice when Sherlock has, and once got you into a lot of trouble for it I remember.” The kidnapping, not that he’d blame Sherlock for that.

“Well he helped me paint the house, came over to cook for me. I don’t think to do things like that.” The admittance was an honest one if one he felt a little guilty about.

“You’re different people, and you were the one in need at the time.” John shrugged it off. “Anyway, of course I’ll take Alice when I can. I have weekends, Wednesday and Friday off, sometimes I’ll want a day off though.”

“It’s only till December, and I can work around you.” Q hurried to assure, beyond grateful. “John, I can’t tell you what this means to me, thank you.”

“It’s alright Q.” John replied, looking chuffed, and Q thought that a lot of John Watson just needed to be needed. Alice started mashing her hands in Q’s top and he fished out a bottle for her from his bag. “May I?” A little surprised, and still a bit cautious, Q nodded and handed over baby and bottle. Alice looked a little displeased again but was soon distracted by food.

Q watched John holding her easily, smiling at her, and found his own face matching the other man’s.

“I won’t do it today, I thought we’d probably go back to yours, but are you okay with the idea of her being back at my place if I look after her in the future?” Q considered it seriously for a moment. “Whatever it is you’re afraid of Sherlock doing, I won’t let him.” The words came out convicted, sure. Q met the other man’s eyes a little helplessly. “Trust me with this, Q, I won’t let you down.”

“Okay.” He folded. He knew James would trust John, the two men got on, hell James had been the one to suggest John help with Alice’s _birth_. “I don’t know what to say John, thank you.”

“That’s all you need to say Q.”

“I owe you, know that much.” John looked like he wanted to say something else to that, but maybe he was taking pity on Q. The omega straightened. “Right. You’re going to need a few things.” Q took his laptop bag and coat out of Alice’s bag, which was big enough to carry a great many things and Q’s back was more than happy to be free from it. He handed it over and Watson managed to juggle taking it and still feeding Alice well.

“I’m sending you her schedule too.” Q replied. He’d had a gradually changing and adapting schedule for Alice written up for weeks now in preparation for day care or getting to the point where he could leave Alice with someone else. Q had it saved on his phone and directed it to Watson’s. “Trust me, you’ll want to stick to it, she likes her routing.”

“Proper little beta eh?” John laughed, turning the grin to Alice. Alice popped off her bottle and turned to Q.

“UP!” The demand wasn’t something Q could resist even as John cooed that she was talking, and he readily moved to steal his child back. A swathe of doubt curled over him as he wrapped around Alice, scenting her neck and nuzzling over her head as she tried to return the favour. Could he really leave her? She’d be without either of her parents… what if she felt abandoned or scared?

“Q,” John’s voice was as gentle as his hand on Q’s shoulder. “Is this the first time you’ve left her?” He held back the whine that wanted to get out, used to tempering his instinctual responses, and settled for a nod. Alice’s curls tickled his nose as he kissed his pup’s head, hating the thought of separating. The fact that John sounded a little incredulous about Q being nine months down the line and not leaving his pup once, Q didn’t have the heart to judge himself on it.

“We’re pack, Q. I’ll take care of her.” More used to hearing the sentiment of ‘pack’ from Alec, Q tried to reign in his reactions.

“Alright. alright.” He kissed over Alice’s head and pulled her back enough to meet her eyes, she batted at his face. “I love you. I’ll see you soon. I promise.” He couldn’t fight giving her a final nuzzle and then managed to prise himself off her enough to put her into John’s arms and turn away sharply. If he looked at her again, or John’s sympathetic face, he’d probably change his mind.

“I’ll send you the code for the house and instruct security to let you out the building…” He had to turn back to them. “Look after her.”

“You’re going to work Q not prison, you’ll be fine, she’ll be fine, You have my word.” John was calm at least. Thank Christ.

“I should only be a few hours.” With that he kissed Alice’s confused cheek again, drinking in her warmth and scent, and opened the door to lead them out. A brief word with security and John Watson was free to go. Tanner was still lurking in reception and came over to him as he watched them go. Alice was watching him over John’s shoulder even as the man grinned and talked to her.

“Q.” Tanner guided him away by the shoulder and Q fought down his hysteric response to break down or run after John. “You look like you’re going to fly apart…” Tanner got him into a less used corridor and an under-used looking office. “Are you alright?”

“Honestly, not quite.” Q managed but pulled himself upright. “But I will be.” Tanner looked a little unsure. “If I’m not in ten minutes, I’ll leave, I won’t cause a scene.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Tanner, of course, hadn’t really seen him anything but stressed over work and confidently calm. Q wished that he could bring a bit more of his work calm to his home life at times, but he supposed everyone had a limit.

“Sorry, I’ve been a hassle today haven’t I? It won’t happen again.” Q assured, and looked a little closer over Tanner, distracting himself with the facts in front of him rather than his heart leaving out of MI6’s front doors. “I’m alright. Thank you.” Tanner nodded, a little calmed by Q’s mask slipping back into place.

“Alright. You’re coming by again right?”

“Yes, I’ll be here each week now. It’ll be good to get back.” Tanner shared his smile and nodded his way out of the office. Q took a few minutes to breathe deeply. He hadn’t come in today to make his branch’s lives harder after all. Allowing himself one moment to bite his arm groundingly, knowing there was a lack of cameras and only audio surveillance in this room, Q’s shoulders eased at the centering pressure. Done with indulging himself Q straightened his clothes, donned his laptop bag, grabbed his coat and walked out with his head high.

The day already felt too long as it was, saying goodbye to James, fighting with Sherlock, reconciling with John, returning to MI6, but Q found energy seeping back into him like electricity to disused wires as he descended to his branch.

There, sleek white walls and hardened glass encasing dark brick chambers welcomed him home, and it was with a contentment that Q swiped his pass and the sliding doors of Q branch opened to him.

Initially no one looked up, the branch was a busy place full of people coming in and out, but as Q stepped inside and paused to look around at the familiar faces of his colleagues and the healthy thrum of technology, it didn’t take long for his presence to be known.

“Q!” Once the cry went up the minions were activated, those not working on current communications swept their heads up.

“Hello everyone, don’t let me stop you.” He held up a hand to stop any dramatics, aware that the wide grin on his face probably displayed how happy he was to be back. His branch seemed giddy around him, and he moved through them greeting and shaking a hand here, patting a trusty gadget there, answering some quick questions of wellbeing and asking his own as he approached towards his old typical work area, slightly elevated in the dungeon holding the rising, relieved form of R.

Q bounded up the steps and drew R into a handshake that morphed into a very brief hug. The man still looked perfectly groomed, but had shadows under his eyes that Q was all too familiar with.

“Quartermaster.” R breathed the word out, for once not quite as composed as usual.

“R, beautiful work, you should be proud of yourself.” Q commended. R deflated a little.

“Maybe not so good lately.” Q shook his head and gestured them both towards the small sealed off office that sat soundly behind a Brick wall. Q rarely used it, there was rarely a need. Even the mattress he sometimes slept on was in the main portion of his working space rather than tucked in the dark room. Q was amused to see that R had added some blankets and a pillow to it.

“Assuming this is a good time?” Q checked. R nodded keenly and sent control over to Geraldine, one of his back ups, before heading with Q into the smaller office.

There, surrounded by dark bricks and some of the more secretive prototypes, both men sat down. Q fixed R with a calm look, focused on the minute ticks of stress and defeat lacing his likely overworked second in command.

“Tell me everything.” R looked forlornly lost for a brief moment, and then begun.

Q’s heart went out to the man as the beta talked, drawing a tale of understaffing for an advancement of the surveillance that Q branch was keeping along with an increasing demand for tech in the field. MI6 had several other ‘branches’ across the world; British run intelligence bases that fed directly back into MI5 and MI6 with warnings, tips and information, each stationed in different countries. Apparently recently a lot of them had found an increase of attacks on their systems and the spread of misinformation and counter-surveillance. Q branch had had to send out their own employees in some cases to go and check over and cover the damage, some of which turned out to be physical.

“Usually they’d send out, well, you.” R pointed out. Which was true, Quartermaster was typically a job that required occasional trips to the field either for assistive support or for overseeing things, whether that was agents or bases. Q hadn’t had to do an awful lot of it, given the attack to MI6 when he’d first joined and Silva’s infiltration, he’d been needed more at home, and then found that a lot of his job could be done remotely… but not always. He’d had to make a lot of trips to the French branch one month. “Knowing that I could cover the fort here.” R continued, drawing Q’s active mind back to the conversation. “But without you here I’ve had to send other techs, and they’re good but they’re not used to long time abroad and running massive overhauls. They can do it eighty percent of the time, but then I’m left with less staff than normal and constant misinformation to clean up…”

R gestured hopelessly.

“Then I go and nearly get double oh Ten killed because of it.”

“That was not intentional.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not my fault.” Q took a deep breath in and out over that, because he’d never lie to the man.

“No, it doesn’t.” R looked surprised at this, though no less pained. “I’d be lying if responsibility wasn’t a major part of this role. But intent is critically important. And losses, failures, we need to use them to learn, to adapt. You lost this battle, and in doing so you won’t lose the next.” He kept hold of his subordinate’s eyes. “I know you won’t.”

“M sent a memo, that you’re started some days back here?” There was a mix of tones in R’s voice.

“Not because you’re failing, but because I need to be back here to do my work. I can’t do it at home without the instantaneous buzz of this place…” Q looked wistfully at the door, imagining the rooms beyond down to the labs and back. “I miss it too much.”

“Well,” R grinned. “You’ve been missed. I’ll be glad to have you back for one. Being acting Q is alright, but I prefer being R.” Q allowed a smile at that, glad that R didn’t have ambitions to overthrow him any time soon.

“I’ll have a lot to catch up on, and I won’t be back full time until December, so I can’t rush oversees to fix the damage,” thank god. “But I can take some of the load off.”

“Good to hear.” R replied with a relieved grin.

“Your work has been truly exemplary R, I do mean that.” Q insisted, and R allowed himself a bit more confidence in his frame.

“Now, show me what’s been going on, I have about an hour to spare.” Q stood with a sharp grin and R followed him, immediately beginning a long run down of the various tech projects and leading Q out to his branch.

It was three hours later, Q’s hands buried with fascination in a new engine modification alongside three of his techies that he realised he’d entirely lost track of time.

Guilty, but feeling elated for time spent back in his element, Q bid his goodbyes and accepted a few well meaning, albeit brief hugs from the odd affectionate member of his branch on his way out.

-00Q00-

A blast of familiarity hit him along with the heat as he finally stalked out of Cairo airport. He had the keys to a not too swanky but decent car in his pocket, courtesy of his documents for the trip. The desert sands were beginning to glow with the setting sun, sky darkening to an almost purple indigo and the city of Cairo was lighting up in welcome.

The last time Bond had been away from Q on a mission of sorts was in Madagascar rescuing Eve, and some of the scenery and warmth reminded him of that time even if Egypt was strikingly different in countless other ways.

As was his mission. Bond checked around himself in habit, keeping an eye on Dr Lewis from medical who was looking faintly starstruck by being in another country. She clearly hadn’t been to the field before, and possibly not on holiday anywhere so far from home.

James directed her to the car and took a moment to familiarise himself with any intricacies it might have before heading out to where 0010 was convalescing.

Lewis had made little but pleasant enough conversation on the plane, but was now distracted by the scenery and occasional murmurs of ‘beautiful’. James let her have her wonder, it brought a smile to his face. Cairo was beautiful at sunset, and that was when they had managed to arrive after their four hour flight. He’d taken the time to let Q know about his safe arrival via text, but wasn’t wholly worried that he hadn’t had a reply. He was two hours ahead of his mate now, and Q could be getting up to anything around their house that distracted him, not the least their little girl.

The scent of her was fading off James’ clothes now, and it made him feel twitchy and restless as he drove them towards the wide sweep of the Nile. Q was a little more ingrained thanks to the sex they’d had the night before, but James would like to be able to reach out and pull them both close to him from overseas.

Sadly James knew that such moments of homesickness weren’t likely to sharpen his mind, so after allowing himself the moment of melancholy he instead focused on the anticipation in his gut.

A short beep alerted both of them to Lewis’ phone going off, James could feel his own vibrate faintly against his chest, so presumed the contact was from MI6

“Campbell has woken up, and been debriefed, he knows we’re coming.” Lewis informed aloud. Bond nodded and continued following the muted satnav around the outskirts of the city to the other side. Bond doubted that the little debrief session had gone very well, but kept his opinions to himself with a brief nod. Lewis watched him a little, but ultimately returned to her own docket of patient information.

James was social enough, but didn’t feel the need to fill vacant space, preferring to let others fill it with their secrets instead in most situations. The rest of their drive was a silent one through the Egyptian twilight until they reached the very private, very well paid recuperation hospital that was one of many MI6 sponsored in return for rapid and vital care for stranded or harmed agents and operatives. Their Egyptian branch would have sorted all that out, small but competent unit that they were, with the help of Q branch no doubt and possibly Tanner.

It reminded James enough of where he’d once spent time recovering from Le Chiffre’s traumatic torture that his hands wanted to tighten on the steering wheel, but he repressed the urge. That hospital was far from the only one he’d spent time recovering in, after all.

Some greenery in the form of palm fronds and sweeping vine laced plants helped screen the private hospital from the rest of the Maadi district. Close to both the river and roads that voided the true pulsing heart of the city, the hospital offered some good ways to get out of a bad situation if need be. Bond pulled into a parking spot under the cover of a car port and the pair of them climbed out. The night was still warmly wrapped around them as they headed inside, where they needed little introduction to be waved on their way.

Bond let Lewis bustle in first, watching quietly through the screen door as she briefly greeted the irruptive personality of 0010 and then consulted with another physician in the room. Seeing his agent spit and snarl impatiently, Bond entered. Campbell’s ginger hair was dishevelled and wild as ever, and he’d grown out a beard since James last saw him. Whilst some might rebuke the agent for giving himself rememberable features, Bond had lived half his career being possibly the best known spy of the British secret service so he wasn’t about to judge.

“Double oh Ten.”

“Aye so ye are here then. Bloody wonderful.” Ignoring the gripe Bond sat and helped himself to some of the grapes on the bedside table next to him.

“That looks painful.” He nodded to the burnt lacerations covering large portions of Campbell’s left side. The agent glanced at them and shrugged.

“Its nay pretty but I donnae care.” He shrugged off.

Bond glanced briefly enough over the clipboard nearby that noted the agent’s injuries that the other man didn’t notice him taking in the details. Some bone fractures to the scapula and fingers, ribs. A now healed concussion. The flaying of skin from rubble and explosive blasts, but all in all the man had been lucky, very lucky. Bond smirked a little at that, given the feisty spirits he found the Scot in.

“I donnae like being babysat either.” Campbell added, beating to the bush and looking with a narrowed scowl at his mentor. “Why’re ye here Bond?”

“Making sure you’re only going to be doing the right sort of stupid after hearing bad news.”

“Ye mean my own employers fudging their intel? Yeah, I think there’s plenty of the wrong kind of stupid out there right now. Bloody got blown up for nothing.” Frowning a little, Bond fixed him with a more curious look.

“So what’s your plan then?”

“Find out where the bastards went and get after ‘em!” Campbell ranted, gesturing with his injured left arm seemingly without a care. “I owe them a few pints of their own blood.” Enjoy the biting violence of his Scottish recruit though he did, James patiently let the man huff out some infuriated breaths before chipping in again.

“Can you?” The words were designed to hurt, to make the man think, and Campell spun to him with a warningly sharp move and cold eyes.

“Aye, if they let me out of this bed.”

“Are you going to do the job well?”

“Ye mean am I gonnae start an incident MI6 cannae cover up, yer a fine one to talk about that Bond.”

Whilst Campbell had a point, Bond didn’t let that show more than a smirk.

“Ye all might think I’m crazier than a canary in a cider barrel but that’s nae my problem.”

“And your injuries won’t compromise you?” Bond pointed out, one brow raised. Caught a little, but not cowed, 0010 met his gaze.

“I can handle myself.”

“But can you handle your mission to the fullest extent, or do I need to recommend back up?” The question was soft, he didn’t wan’t to accuse Campbell, but wondered if the man wasn’t putting up a front. He seemed bizarrely fine. James could remember his first butchered mission, he’d been nowhere near as composed on the inside as he presented on the outside.

“Yer already here aren’t ye? Seems the decision’s made.” Campbell retorted right back without missing a beat. Bond leant forwards, purposefully not moving his body away from the conversation even as he had to physically move himself away from the mission.

“I’m here as a contact, not a back up operative.”

“Got too nice of a thing going on at home now eh?” Another person than Bond might have bristled at the words, the suggestion that they weren’t mentally or physically efficient enough any more, but Campbell said the words with a co-conspirator’s smile and not with condemnation. Besides, Bond had always been a man of conviction. Once he made up his mind, he was all in.

And after years and mountains of trust with Q, he knew that his decision to semi-retire from field work wasn’t going to come back to curse him through a betrayal of the heart.

“Something like that.” He replied instead, holding the smirk on his face but eyes not leaving the younger alpha’s, not letting him slip off the hook with a diversion.

“I got blown up, Bond, not bisected, its nae gonnae hurt my feelings if a terrorist cell decided they didnae like me getting close.” That was a valid point, Bond supposed.

“And that you got injured because of misinformation slipping through?” Bond had to clarify that, because if for any reason his own recruit got the hump with Six in more than a typical agent’s snippy grudge and acting out then that was a problem that he couldn’t allow.

“I’m nae you, Bond. I’m nae some stoic charmer whose gonna wait to throw a dramatic hissy fit like a stubborn child. If I want something I’m gonnae ask for it, not hope someone else notices soon enough.”

“Dramatic hissy fit?” Bond questioned, offended mildly through his thick skin and lowering his brows. “At least you said I’m charming.”

“Aye as a radioactively timed Rottweiler. All pretty smiles for the women till you rip a limb off.”

“But not you?” He prompted, torn between sour and grudgingly pleased to see his agent deploying people reading skills, even if he didn’t have to admit that out loud.

“Nae on yer life, I don’t have yer ego, but I donnae have yer patience either. That’s what got me into trouble this time, and it’ll nae happen again.” He met Bond’s eyes as they widened fractionally at that, the easy admittance. The way the Scot’s gaze hardened suggested the intent he was putting into the next words.

“I’m nae gonna fail twice. I may nae be double oh seven, but ye did train me. Gonnae trust me any time soon, Bond?”

A little taken aback, but not letting it show whilst the words settled and sorted inside his mind, Bond finally replied.

“If I didn’t trust you, I’d have told M to pull the plug.” Though he could admit, a lot of his trust was being bolstered by 0010’s no-nonsense attitude, amidst the candour that was. He’d always preferred the people who could put up a fight with him. “But I am in Egypt as your contact, so I’ll endeavour to be more supportive in the future.”

“Donnae go soft on me, I need some of your old-timer skills to get around this mess.”

“Consider it done.”

From their brief careers so far, 0010 and 0011 were still honing their repertoire of skills, yet to settle fully. This mission and Campbell’s reaction to it told him a little bit more about what he would find easier and more challenging. Whilst every double oh was capable of adapting to any mission and would be pretty poor at their jobs otherwise, they all had skills that they favoured.

Bond’s ability to read people and get under their skin was more developed than some of his fellows, but Alec could be more mercilessly creative with punishments when needed.

James likened Campbell to a berserker to be unleashed and pointed towards the enemy. A dogged terrier.

For now he nodded, mind already calculating how to assist with the mission, and assuming to himself that depending on how chatty their terrorist friends were feeling that it might take three days or more to locate them trying to make their next weapons deal. Campbell agreed, and added that he had narrowed down their potential hide outs by having already found and made some unsuitable whilst off the clock from silently haunting them.

After a while discussing particulars, Bond left Campbell to rest. The group would likely be keen to sell on and move out quickly, so they had a time issue on their hands that made him wonder if Campbell really would be able to bounce back and do his end of the job. But he had to trust his agent. If he didn’t, Bond would never have put them in the field.

He was finding, increasingly though, that there was a fine line in the way that doubt and concern were expressed, and he wondered if his old M had ever been quite so able to separate the two emotions as she claimed.

He did take the time to read a message from Q that stated all was fine on the home front, and call when he could, but only call if it was applicable to the Egypt situation. Smirking at Q’s typical covering of the bases, James promised to call when he could, keen to get the mission underway and wrapped up now he was semi-involved in it in a sniping capacity.

So nice to have his skills appreciated.

James felt gratified enough by that to push 0010’s comments about him being ‘dramatic’ aside for now.

-00Q00-

Q had run from the garage to the house, the desire to be back with his pup rising along with the threat he felt at being apart, both increasing the closer to home he got.

“John I’m so sorry-“ His swift entrance skidded to a halt when he saw both John and Sherlock in his house, Alice on the floor between them. His pause was only momentary before he was storming forwards and John rose to drag Sherlock back as Q moved himself between them and Alice. “Was this your plan? Tricking me?”

“Oh calm down.”

“Sherlock! Q, no, I swear, he just turned up but everything is fine! Alice is fine.” John hurried to assure him whilst Q glared at them for a moment longer, seeing red, finally switching the gaze to Sherlock.

“So is it that you have so little respect for me you decided to push today, or is it that you don’t trust John to do something alone?”

“Christ Q.” John swore, Sherlock’s eyes widened, taken aback a little.

“Very far off the mark, little brother.”

“So it’s option three then.” Q decided, retracting himself a little from an aggressive stance. “That you just have no control.”

“I have plenty of control! Unlike you, insulting me after I swooped in to save you,”

“I had things under control.”

“So that’s why you called him to take care of your child a few scant minutes before waltzing into MI6?” Sherlock made the accusation like a stab, attacking everything that Q was already thinking himself incapable of. The omega glanced at John.

“He told you how to find me.” Q stated a little bluntly, he’d thought as much.

“He just told me that if I had the burning need to see you that’s where you’d be.” John pacified. On the floor, Alice started sobbing.

“Thank you John. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me today. Q replied stiffly and bent to pick up Alice, who clung to him and sobbed, needy in a way she usually wasn’t.

“Q, no, don’t shut us out,” There was some sadness in Watson’s tone but Sherlock cut him off.

“What, you’re not going to thank me for helping you too?” Sherlock snapped, angry. Q turned to him, unable to hide the anger in his eyes but voice flat.

“Thank you Sherlock.”

“There that wasn’t so hard.” Sherlock replied, but narrowed his eyes whilst speaking, not buying the thanks for a moment. “I don’t see why you’re so upset-“

“It’s the deceit!” Q snapped, surprising Sherlock a bit.

“You know what my methods are-“

“I didn’t ask for your methods though did I?”

“So you don’t want me to be involved at all?” Sherlock threw his hands around and rolled his eyes. “Even when I try to help?”

“Send me a bloody message next time… ‘Q I’ve told John where to find you, Q I’m meeting up with John at your house any issues?’ Don’t just do things, talk to me!”

“You don’t talk to me!” Sherlock snapped back.

“What’s there to talk about?” Q threw out wildly, bouncing Alice as she sobbed and lowering his voice. “You know what, get out. We can talk later about whatever you want just get out.” He was drawn and over it and couldn’t understand Sherlock at all.

“No, no you two need to sit down and talk about this now before it goest any further.” John’s tone brokered on an order and both Holmes brothers looked to him in surprise. “Or I’ll call Mycroft.”

Deeply emphatic with Sherlock’s bark of “Don’t you dare!” Q quailed, knowing a valid threat when he heard it.

“Shall I-“

“Fucking try it, sorry.” Q countered his own snarled words as John came over to try and take Alice, holding up a hand as a peace offering. Sherlock was vibrating with impatience across from him. “Fine. Fine you can stay. But give me a minute.”

Q turned regardless of the response and took Alice out to the sanctity of the master bedroom, where he proceeded to hug and soothe her and tolerate her banging fists and pulling at him to get closer until she calmed. Somewhat hysterically he thought it was a good fucking thing his branch didn’t know what an absolute wreck he was like outside of work. Wishing viscerally that he had James with him, Q whipped out his phone to take a look at the time of their last messages. James had said he’d call when he could, but he was the one on a mission, Q was just living life. He wouldn’t disturb James for that. No doubt the Alpha would be torn between dropping what he was doing and talking to Q.

No. He wouldn’t be a potentially lethal distraction. Putting his phone away Q cuddled Alice close and pulled back to check on her. She was sobbing in little hiccups and Q felt awful for it.

“I’m sorry, I never wanted you hurt.” He nuzzled her gently until the last of her tears dried and then, eyeing the time, tried to get her at least settled for bed. The two betas downstairs would have to wait whilst he gave Alice a quick wash to help her relax and encouraged her to suckle. She didn’t have a problem with it luckily, and Q tucked her into her crib with a soft toy and a quick meaningless bedtime story about very hungry caterpillars.

The story reminded Q that it was nearly five and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

James was going to kill him if he ever found that out. Q had been so much better about eating since the beginning of his pregnancy.

He’d also been better at dealing with his brothers.

“Maybe I’m reverting to the norm.” Q mumbled forlornly. Still, he couldn’t hide from the monsters in his own house, so he closed the book, turned on the baby monitor linked to his phone and headed downstairs.

Sherlock was pacing and John had made them tea. Q accepted it but remained standing as he watched Sherlock. John sighed, eyeing his caged tiger of a partner and the wary hawk eyes of Q.

“For god’s sake you two sit down.”

“I don’t see what there is to talk about.”

“Oh don’t retreat-“

“Then don’t attack!”

“BOTH of you _sit down_!” John demanded over the developing spat. Grudgingly, they both did, Q following Sherlock’s cue to not upset Watson. “Now, talk like adults. Use ‘I feel’ statements-“

“I don’t hear from you for weeks at a time and then you get in touch and it’s not even to speak to me.” Sherlock ignored John to spit out.

“So much for that then.” John muttered and Q ignored him, hopelessly confused.

“What’s there to say? I’m not living an interesting life right now, I barely leave the house, I clean up after a child, you despise mundane things.” Q countered with.

“You can’t even tell me anything about how you are?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“You’re not coping well.” Q put his mug back down after a sip. Sherlock hadn’t touched his.

“I’m _fine_.”

“You’re not-“

“Don’t insult me.” Q snapped again. “It’s a flip of the coin every time we talk; heads it will be fine or tails end in something like this.” He gestured around to get his point across. “Shockingly enough having things like this happen does not improve my overall mood, state of being, or make me love you so forgive me if I retreat a little bit at times. It might have escaped you but I have enough going on.” Q marched out the words crisply, Sherlock narrowed his eyes.

“If you have enough going on then I could help you.”

“And then we’re back to the flip of a coin thing, what happened when I called for help today, hmm? Did you accept it if you’re so worried about me, that I might know what help I need and when? Or did you try and handle things how you saw fit?”

“It worked out-“

“Until the point where it _didn’t_.” Q insisted, hands on the table to match Sherlock leaning forwards. “Until the point where I come home and whether it’s you or me a fight starts and my pup ends up crying.”

“That’s what pups do.” Sherlock replied and both of them sat back with a scornful look.

“Jesus christ, it’s like watching children fight over legos.” John commentated, running his hands over his face.

“What’s this even about anyway.” Q turned the conversation around. “Why are you so angry at me?” He asked Sherlock’s narrowed eyes, crossing his own arms.

“You know why.”

“Make it clear.”

“Can’t you just guess-“

“No I can’t!” Q hissed, the only other option to shouting, a swarm of emotions in his chest. “I can’t just ‘work things out’ like you, alright?” Sherlock looked almost confused. “That’s what you’re good at, you and Mycroft, not me. I’m good at things not people. If you’re so good at reading people then surely you’ve worked that out by now, or could at least use it for the greater good rather than to try and one up me when I don’t even know why you’re doing it!”

“Trying to one-up you? Like I’d need to.” Sherlock scoffed.

Q didn’t have anything else to say, what could he say? What was he trying to say? He hadn’t even wanted a conversation.

“Surely it's obvious that I care.” Sherlock pushed. Q deflated and fixed his glasses up, a single contained movement to try and bring some stability back.

“I never said you didn’t. You’re the one who likes to try and hide that from me, though I can’t for the life of me work out why.”

“I don’t.”

“Tell me.” Q tried to change track. “I know there’s not much you need me for, but on the rare occasions when you have sought my help, hiding your death for instance,” He cast an apologetic look at John, who stiffened at the memory. “What did I do? Without question?”

“You did what I wanted, scrubbed the trail.” Sherlock replied, frowning, quick mind likely racing ahead of the situation.

“And did that help, at the time?”

“Of course or I wouldn’t have bothered coming.” Ignoring the impatience Q continued.

“And when I called this morning what did you do?”

“It wasn’t me you were asking.” Sherlock bit back.

“Maybe what I needed is just for you to accept what I did ask for, without fuss.”

Sherlock eyed this over for a moment.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t help me this morning more than you wanted, I’m sorry if I was cruel to you, I’m sorry if I was rude when I came in and saw you here… But I can’t trust what I don’t know or can’t see, not if you don’t tell me.” With a big huff at the careful words Sherlock rocked back in his chair with a groan.

“Dull.” The word didn’t surprise Q, neither did the lack of any sort of responsibility being taken on Sherlock’s part. His brother was infuriatingly often not entirely in the wrong or in the right, but for all he was fiercely intelligent he either couldn’t see or didn’t care for the effects of his actions.

“Well then I guess I’m dull. I can’t read minds.” Q turned to John “Are we done here?” John looked torn, glancing between them.

“I… don’t know if we should leave it like this.” John voiced.

Sherlock wasn’t saying anything.

“Don’t make me cook you dinner, I’m terrible at it and then you’ll probably run screaming.” Q said, ignoring the gaping feeling of loneliness in his chest as much as he was ignoring Sherlock looking at the ceiling rather than him.

“No, no we don’t want to add more stress to you, do we Sherlock?” John added the last remark a little sternly.

“You really do think little of me don’t you?” The quiet tone from Sherlock was rarely a good thing, low in it’s viciousness.

“I don’t.” Q expressed, tiredness leeching into his voice. His head found his hands and he rested on them heavily. “But you’re an unpredictable element, one that at any moment that might blow up in my face at the slightest wrong move… and that frightens me.” The words were easier to admit into the dark of his hands.

The sound of Sherlock’s chair legs hitting the floor filled the room. Then the man stood up and billowed past Q.

“You always were afraid of everything.” The words held more bite than the slam of the door and Q flinched at them. John stood a little slower after him.

“He really was trying to help you know, in his own way.” Q fixed his face enough to lift it from his hands, offering John a faint smile.

“If you can forgive him his methods then you’re a better person than me I’m sure.” He stood after that, a little taller than John but not feeling it much at the moment. “I think it’s better if we cancel the day care for the future. Thank you though, I did appreciate it.” Politeness was an easy mask to fall back on, especially if he ignored the rather tragic look of pain on John’s face. He walked to the door before the beta was scrambling after him.

“Q, no, you don’t have to do that.”

“Don’t I? It’s not like he seems willing to let this go.” Q murmured, opening the door for John and eyeing the shadowed, lurking form of his brother outside waiting for the good Doctor.

“Look it doesn’t have to be this way, you’re all so bloody stubborn!” John ranted and looked set to continue, but Q raised a hand to stop him.

“We all treat Sherlock with kid gloves like he’s the way he is and we shouldn’t seek to change him.” Q said, looking out at his brother whilst talking in a quietly done voice to John. “I try to accept that and work around his abilities and look where it gets me.”

“But maybe if-“

“Well maybe I can’t change who I am that easily either.” John quietened at that, and looked at Q with this tilted frown that he was maybe seeing him in a new, and who knew how favourable light. “Think what you will of me for it.” John had shuffled out the door, so Q nodded to him and closed it.

It was the easiest thing to hit the door with his back and slide down it, letting himself dwell in the little pool of seclusion he found there.

He understand how so much could go so wrong in one fell swoop.

_Serves me right for asking for help I suppose. God can’t they bloody see why I don’t?_ The quiet air around him gave his thoughts no answer, and Q had landed himself well and truly up shit creek without a paddle.

He wasn’t going to fight with Sherlock for John Watson’s time, no matter how willing Watson seemed, it probably would only drive Sherlock towards a breaking point. So now he needed a new plan for how to manage work and his pup… unless he called M and cancelled it all, but then he’d be letting his branch down.

“Shit. Shit!” The swearing didn’t help him much, but it beat crying over his failing relationship with his brother.

Despite how Q felt positive about getting to the stage that he had, being able to go into the office, relinquishing Alice to someone else, it seemed to come with a double edged sword.

“The hardest part about this was meant to be raising a bloody child.” Q chided the world as he pushed himself off the floor. “Not the damn politics.”

Still, he forced himself to cook and eat dinner and not get blindingly drunk like he hadn’t in over a year because he was the only person around to care for Alice. He did, however, send a text to Eve and Tanner.

_-When James is back and things are sane I need to get drunk like it’s nobody’s business.-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. My. God. This chapter was an absolute nightmare. Back in VMW there was a chapter where 00Q wanted to fight, this time it was Q and Sherlock! I went with it. I also have absolutely masses of Opinions on this chapter and all the characters in it since a lot of them decided to act out... but I thought I'd keep it down and just see what you guys think.
> 
> This was incidentally meant to be James' turn to be a wreck. But he ended up deciding to be competent this chapter! Q seemed to feel he was done with coping well with things. Bless him he's trying to get better.
> 
> Also did not plan to have Alice speak this early, she had now also decided to pipe up and have a voice. I'm screwed, all the characters are coming to life!  
> Also also I am very keen to write some Alec into this soon, I miss him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments, kudos and critique appreciated. Hope you enjoyed!


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